to make : halloween cupcakes
 ghost cupcakes  spider cupcakes  my inspiration - a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery  the ghost mold as seen from underneath  one little sugar ghost drying  colored sanding sugar  cupcake with a quarter for scale - I made mini cupcakes  making piped spider 1  making piped spider 2  making piped spider 3  this one is my favorite |
halloween! cupcakes!
I love Halloween. I was born in October and as a little kid always though Halloween was my holiday. So this year I tried some cupcakes. note: all the cupcakes pictured are mini cupcakes. ghost candies There was a nice picture of a charming cupcake from Magnolia bakery in Manhattan in Lucky magazine a while back. You can see the picture of it to the left. I though the little sugar daisy decorations were precious. But I couldn't find anything like them, so I made some. I found some Wilton candy molds at Michaels - tiny (about the size of a quarter) ghosts and pumpkins. I used the mexican sugar skull recipe from MexicanSugarSkull.com (a very friendly company with everything for Day of the Dead). They have the recipe, instructions and pictures here. One cup of sugar, one teaspoon of meringue powder, sift together, then sprinkle bit by bit one teaspoon of water and mix until it is just wet enough to hold together. Pack into molds, slide out of molds onto cardboard and let dry overnight. I used superfine sugar because that is what I had in the house at the time, I'm not sure if it worked better than regular sugar, but it worked very well. I used a toothpick to dot the ghost eyes of the mold with black gel food coloring before I packed the suagr in, which worked pretty well. I didn't try coloring sugar to make the pumpkins yet, but I will probably do that soon. After they had dried the ghosts were very hard, perfect. I used the same black gel food coloring to color the frosting into a drab gray, and to color some sugar for sanding as well. I'm sure black sanding sugar from the store would have been great, but I was too lazy to make the trip. I made mini cupcakes - you can see the results to the left. I used a cake mix for the cupcakes and a can of cream cheese frosting. The frosting didn't hold up very well. I would also like to find tiny candy molds in the shape of bats, skulls, and tombstones. I think the ghosts would have looked cuter on regular sized cupcakes. chocolate spiders This is recycled from last year. I melted some semi sweet chocolate chunks and used a plastic bag with a tiny bit of the corner cut off to pipe it onto the mini cupcakes. I like the way they turned out. You can also pipe frosting. I found the best way to do this was to pipe the head and all of the legs first, then the body, see left for three successive pictures. You could, of course, pipe a spider on top of a frosted cupcake. I'm not sure if it would be more difficult though. For posterity, here is the picture from last year: 
added Oct. 2006 -- You might also be interested in my most recent Halloween creation, crawly spider cakes: 
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these rocks. i'm gonna make something like that, for my cupcake party:)
Comment by Ditte — January 25, 2007 @ 6:06 am
love the pics!! i'm especially interested in your mini cupcakes. I'm having a hard time finding a pan and the paper liners that are the same size for a mini cupcake. Can you tell me what you used for these? Thanks alot!
Comment by Dee — April 5, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
Your idea to mold the ghosts is great, but you could also have melted dark chocolate for the eyes and white chocolate for the bodies. You can colour the white chocolate for your pumkins and other decorations.
At easter, when store have white bunnies left at reduced prices, I stock up on them and freeze them for future decorating projects. I find the white chocolate so much whiter than baker's white chocolate.
Comment by Mabel — September 23, 2007 @ 11:43 am
I love these! Those spiders are really neat. I also like working with the meringue and sugar mixture because it makes a nice smooth layer. Do you ever add butter to your meringue icings?
I have some Halloween cupcake ideas too at http://cupcakeideasbook.com
Comment by Sarah — October 3, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
I loved the ideas! Breaking it down for those of us not very crafty was wonderful.
I hope to use one or two for my Halloween get together!
Comment by Valerie — October 15, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
I was just wondering how you make black food coloring!
Comment by Linzi — October 23, 2007 @ 5:29 am
Linzi - I purchased black food coloring paste at a nicer grocery store, you usually cannot find it at normal grocery stores. Or look at a baking or cake design store.
Comment by megan — October 23, 2007 @ 7:37 am
Bravo! Well done! Looks great!
I'm with you, I make the mini's too.
The kids love them as much as the big ones and they are such a smaller mess!
Comment by Denise — October 24, 2007 @ 5:14 am
Wow, cool spiders! Good job on the photos too. Smaller is better. ;)
Comment by jz — October 25, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
This is awesome! I mean look at all this cupcakes their fantastic.
Comment by FhelZone — October 26, 2007 @ 2:06 am
there soooo cut my mom wants to use the decoration on the cupcakes for my holloween girl scout party tomarrow[saturday].HOLLA AT YA!!!
Comment by zoey — October 26, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
The best way I have found to make black frosting is to start with chocolate frosting and add black paste food coloring.
Comment by karen — October 27, 2007 @ 5:59 am
I just made piped spider cupcakes for my preschool class. It was easy, but looked very cool. I am sure kids will love them!
Comment by ym — October 30, 2007 @ 4:07 pm