Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween Cupcakes with chocolate sponge and orange frosting, and decorated with edible eyes and spider cobwebs, delicious Halloween treats for kids and grown-ups too. Quick and easy to make, the perfect sweet treat for your Halloween party.

With everything that has happened in the past two years, this will hopefully be the first Halloween that can be celebrated properly, with all the spooky cheer that it deserves. Decorating and treats are the first on the to-plan list, and while there is an abundance of sugary treats to choose from in the shops, nothing beats a good old baking session to get into the Halloween spirit.

Decorating wise, all good, my knitted Halloween wreath is ready and, although not too scary, it certainly is Halloweenish. Now onto the treats. Blood splatter cookies, eyeball truffles, blood hot chocolate all done - but there is still room for loads more. And these Halloween cupcakes were just what I needed.

Decorating wise, you can get as creative as you wish - there are a lot of spooky edible bits and pieces to choose from, but somehow I can't have enough of the edible eyes. They are great fun to decorate with, and you can make pretty much anything, from cute animal faces, to monsters and aliens, eyeballs, and the list is endless.

Jump to:

• How to make Halloween cupcakes
• THE SPONGE
• THE ORANGE FROSTING
• Tips and tricks

How to make Halloween cupcakes

I kept these cupcakes relatively simple: a classic chocolate sponge and orange frosting/icing to match the Halloween colours. If you have a good-quality orange food colouring, you can get a deliciously vibrant frosting in any flavour you like.

THE SPONGE

Unlike muffins, which are light and airy, cupcakes are rich, buttery and dense, just the perfect texture for decorating with some silky smooth icing.

• cream the sugar and butter, add the eggs and mix well to incorporate - make sure the butter is soft, but not melted
• add the flour, cocoa powder and vanilla extract, and use a spatula to combine all the ingredients
• line a 6-hole muffin tin with muffin paper cases, and divide the batter between each hole
• bake in the preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius (390 Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes

THE ORANGE FROSTING

• in a food processor, add the sifted icing sugar, soft butter, vanilla extract and milk
• blitz to get a smooth paste
• add the orange food colouring and blitz again

Tips and tricks

This is just the basic recipe for a good cupcake, as long as you have the basic ingredients, you can tweak the recipe to your liking. The sponge can get any colour you like, omit the cocoa powder for a traditional sponge colour, or use food colouring to the batter to make any colourful sponge you like.

The same goes for the frosting - orange is one option here, but you can use any other colour, or colours - my Easy Chocolate Cupcakes with Marbled Buttercream are just an example how the different shades of icing can be combined to create a nice contrast. As for decorating the cupcakes - the spookier, the better, so use anything else that you have around.

The cupcakes once decorated can be left at room temperature for at least 3 days. I don't recommend refrigerating, as the butter sponge will turn pretty hard and the frosting won't have the smooth texture anymore. Other than that, enjoy, you are in for a treat!

If you’ve liked my HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES or any other recipe on the blog then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you! You can also FOLLOW ME on FACEBOOK, and PINTEREST to see more delicious food and what I’m getting up to.