Frightfully delicious cupcakes

There’s no better time than Halloween to harness your inner Martha Stewart and get creative in the kitchen. As you quickly prep your house for Halloween and frantically sew together your child’s Elvis costume, spooky cupcake decorating is probably last on your list. However, these fun and easy decorating tips take little time to do and are fun for the whole family! Plus, what kid doesn’t love playing with their food?

Leave your boring black and white sprinkles and ol’ chocolate frosting behind and create these little pumpkins (like the one shown above), ghosts and eyeballs instead! For the base of all three Halloween cupcakes, I used this recipe for red velvet cupcakes. Omit the red food coloring if you prefer just chocolate!

Red velvet cupcakes

Yields about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 12 tablespoons unsweetened dark chocolate powder
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups of white sugar
• 1-1/3 cups skim milk
• 1-1/3 cups butter or margarine, softened
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons red food coloring

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place Halloween cupcake liners in a muffin tin, set aside.
2. Mix sugar, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, milk and butter in a bowl. Beat with an electric mixture until creamed. Gradually add in flour and chocolate, mix until no lumps and mixture is creamy. Mix in red food coloring. Fill each liner with about 2/3 cup of batter and bake for about 25 minutes.
3. Place on a wire cooling rack and cool completely before frosting.

Happy pumpkins

Recipe makes 2 cups of frosting.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of margarine or butter
• 1 jar (about 7-8 ounces) of marshmallow creme (NOT topping!)
• 1 teaspoon of almond extract
• 16 ounces (about one package) of confectioners’ sugar
• 1-1/2 tablespoons of skim milk?
• Red and yellow food coloring
• Mini chocolate chips, regular size chocolate chips, black jelly beans and almonds

Directions:

1. To make the frosting: Mix butter, marshmallow cream and sugar together until mixed. Add in almond extract. Slowly add milk. Add in 50 drops of yellow food coloring and about 8 drops of red to create a deep orange color. Frosting will be thick and will easily form peaks.
2. To decorate: Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost them with a butter knife. Using the back of a knife, make light indents that curve slightly to the right (to mimic a pumpkin). Add two black jelly beans as eyes, one regular size chocolate chip for a nose and create a smile (or whatever) with the mini chocolate chips. Make a stem by sticking an almond out of the top of the cupcake.

Up next: Boo-tiful ghosts and bleeding eyeballs >>