Spooky Cucpakes!

 

I love Halloween so making cupcakes was a must. I had lots of fun planning what to make and then executing it. Thanks to my mom for helping and I'm glad dad supervised the creative details.

I began with a good ole box of Duncan Hines Devils Food Cake. To add some flavor I decided to pipe strawberry jam in the center. First time piping jam and I was regretting buying "spreadable jam". It was really runny and hard to control. On second thought it is possible that spreadable is the best option because it may seep further into the cupcake versus just in the center. Like I said it was my first time so this is just a guess. I choose Wilton "trick or treat" baking cups.



Some of the ingredients!



For Jack Skellington I used black glitter gel and white butter cream icing (the Wilton variety).

RIP gravestone cupcakes are comprised of chocolate butter cream, a crumbled Oreo cookie, pumpkin candy corn, and a Milano cookie. Again I used the black glitter gel to write "RIP" which makes for a glitzy headstone!

Then the spider web was a little tricky. I reviewed this blog post and thought making a spider web would be easy. Wrong! I iced the cupcakes with orange and purple butter cream and then piped circles within circles with white butter cream. The next logical step is to run a toothpick through the circles. Yeah that is what I thought. The circles disappeared! I searched my iPhone safari for "how to" articles and discovered that gel is used for the circles. I just happened to have orange and black gel lying around...what do you know! I made different color combinations and here is the result:

You can't have spider web cupcakes without spiders and man do these jokers look creepy! I wondered where on earth does one find black licorice?!? Luckily my coworker said Fresh Market sells it and she was making a trip there that week. With the low, low price of $0.35 I had 4 rolls of black licorice. Thanks to my coworker for contributing to my master piece. Enter spooky laugh - wha ha ha ha! The eyes are red M&Ms and then the body is black sprinkles and more chocolate butter cream.

Last up is the Great Pumpkin! Orange butter cream, orange glitter gel, and adorable stems and leaves in green butter cream make these pumpkins look too pretty to eat.

Again the small group girls, my parents, and coworkers enjoyed these spooky treats. All in all everyone was impressed.

We had a small group pumpkin carving party and the cupcakes were a nice addition. Check out our carving abilities. Not to brag but we free handed these jack-o-lanterns. Well I eyed a stencil but I think that counts as free handing. In my book it does anyway.

Happy Halloween!