Halloween Cupcake Recipe

What better way to celebrate Halloween than by stuffing your face full of devilishly tasty cupcakes? I've been planning these tasty treats for a couple of weeks now and I finally found time to make them this week! These combine a tasty orange sponge with two toned vanilla buttercream icing (wow, that's a mouthful) and I can honestly say these are some of the best cupcakes I have ever made, the buttercream is particularly mouth watering. What I love about these is how easily you can chop and change up your colours and flavours to create something for any special occasion. Think pink and white for Valentines Day or red for Christmas.

I used a simple recipe for the cupcake batter taken from Mary Berry's Baking Bible but rather than using vanilla extract I used orange extract (alternatively you could use the zest of one orange). You will need:

100g softened butter

150g sifted self-raising flour

150g sifted caster sugar

3 tablespoons of milk

2 large eggs

1/2 a teaspoon of orange extract 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C Fan.

2. Line a cupcake tin with 12 cases. I doubled mine up just to ensure they kept their shape. These pretty teal cases with spider web detail and matching spider toppers are from Asda.

3. Measure out all your ingredients in to a bowl and blend until smooth then spoon evenly between the 12 cases.

4. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden brown. Leave to cool before you start the icing (this is hugely important, if they're warm when you start to decorate the icing will just melt)

Now for the buttercream icing. The first thing I will say for this is to try and use real unsalted butter if you can. I started off using Stork margarine and it just doesn't have the same texture and amazing taste as proper butter. Another thing I will add is that you want the butter softened but not melted. Leave it on the side for a few hours or zap it briefly in the microwave but keep an eye on it. You will need:

600g sifted icing sugar 

300g unsalted softened butter

1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract

food colourings of your choice

disposable piping bags (2 colours requires 3 bags and 4 requires 6)

piping nozzle of your choice 

1. Cream together the icing sugar and butter until smooth then add your vanilla extract and mix together. 

2. For four different colours like I have done, separate the icing equally between four bowls and add 1/2 a teaspoon of each colouring to the bowls and mix well. For colouring I would highly recommend using a paste as I have found that these provide the best colour while not affecting the consistency of the icing as much as supermarket food colourings do. Hobbycraft do a great selection here. You can see the difference below between the purple and the other colours, it's a lot more pigmented. 

3. The easiest method I have found for creating this two tone effect is to use two piping bags within another piping bag. Fill one bag with one colour and another with your second colour then place both of these bags within another piping bag, then when you squeeze the buttercream out you should get a really nice two toned effect. I recommend just giving it a practice run on a spoon or something like that just to check that both colours are coming out at the same time.

4. Once piped you can decorate your cupcakes as you like! I used some cake toppers from Asda and sprinkles from Hobbycraft.

 Will you be trying out these cupcakes or any other Halloween treats this year?