Creepy Crawly Cupcakes

Wow. So this post is LONG overdue! I have been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to update my blog; which is crazy!

So I know that it's past Halloween now, but I still want to share my creepy crawly cupcakes with you!
For these spooky treats, I didn't bother to make them  from scratch because I wanted to focus on showing you how to decorate them and the trick to making them truly Halloween-eqsue! (Just wait and see how!)

Creepy Crawly Cupcakes

What you'll need:

• 1 Vanilla or yellow boxed cake mix.
• Orange food colouring
• Black food colouring
• Toothpicks or wooden skewers
• Doughnut holes (chocolate ones work best)
• Chocolate cookie crumbs (such as Oreo)
• Shoelace licorice; black or purple
• 1 batch butter cream icing (recipe below)

Okay! So lets get started.

"Butter Cream" Icing

Makes enough icing to ice 24 cupcakes

   This icing recipe is for "butter cream" icing - it is not a true butter cream, since traditionally you would make a sweet sugar syrup and use it when making the icing. But that is time consuming and can be a bit difficult for beginners. This recipe is a nice, quick way to make icing that is very similar to the real thing- in fact, you'd never know the difference!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups icing sugar
• Orange and black food colouring (gel food colouring is best)
• 2 tbsp milk (see note)

Directions:

1. Place butter, icing sugar and vanilla into a bowl. Beat together with a mixer until smooth, but not so smooth that it's runny. It needs smooth enough for you to easily ice the cupcakes, while at the same time thick enough so that the icing doesn't just slop off the cupcakes.
2. Seperate about 1/3rd of the icing into a seperate bowl. Add the orange food colouring to the larger  amount of icing and mix it in. Do the same with the other bowl of icing but with your black food colouring.
   
   **Note: When making the icing, you might find that it is too dry once mixed. If this happens, add a little milk to the icing. When making icing you ALWAYS add liquid a little at a time because icing can quickly go from stiff to liquid if you add even a drop too much liquid.
   
   Add milk a drop at a time and mix it fully into the icing. If you need more, add more.

Orange and Black Swirled Cupcakes!

My "swirled" cupcakes.. that didn't swirl so well this time! :P

1. Start by making the cake mix following the package instructions.
2. Once you have made the batter, divide the batter into 2 separate bowls. Add black food colouring to one of the batters and mix well until all the batter is black.
   
   **Note: If you have measures with pour spouts, I would use those instead of regular bowls. It makes the next few steps easier!
   
   Coloured batters
3. Add orange food colouring to the other bowl of batter and mix well.
4. Line two muffin pans with cupcake papers. 
5. Now for the fun part! - Take your orange batter and fill each muffin cup about 1/3 full with the batter.
   
   
   
   
   
   Orange batter layer before black is added.
   
   
6. Now take your black batter and top off each muffin cup with batter. You should fill the muffin cup up so that it is about 2/3rds full after you have poured both the orange and black batter into the pan.
7. Take your toothpick/skewer and swirl the batter of each cupcake around in circles. Remember that you are swirling the batter around; not mixing it all together (otherwise you will have muddy coloured cupcakes! :S )
8. Bake the cupcakes in the oven following the package directions.

Creepy Crawly Spider Decoration

1. Start by icing your cupcakes with the orange icing.
2. Next, if you have one, fill a piping bag with your black icing with a small sized round tip attached; saving some for icing your doughnut holes (about 1/4 cup). If you don't have a piping bag, you can also use a ziplock bag - fill the bag with your icing towards one corner of the bag. Twist the end of the bag to push the icing down towards the corner you chose, and while holding the bag, snip the tip of the bag off with scissors to make a small hole. 
3. Pipe spider webs on the tops of the cupcakes.
   
   
        
   
   Now we are going to make our spiders!
4. Place your cookie crumbs into a shallow dish.
5. Cut one end off of each of your doughnut holes. This will make the spider's body sit flat on your cupcakes.
   
   
     
   
   * When making the spider bodies, make each spider one at a time.
6. Ice a doughnut hole with the extra black icing you set aside earlier. You do not need to use much; just enough to coat the doughnut.  Then role the doughnut in the cookie crumbs to coat it.
7.  Sit your doughnut hole down on a flat surface and poke 4 - 6 holes into the doughnut ( 2 - 3 on either side). You are going to be putting your spider legs into these holes.
8. Place the doughnut hole on top of the centre of the cupcake and gently press it into the icing. 
9. Cut your licorice strings into pieces for the spider's legs (about 2 inches each)
10. Poke one end of a licorice piece into a hole that you poked into the doughnut. Then stick the other end into the cupcake to create a spider leg. Repeat for the rest of the legs.
11. Lastly, place eyes and fangs onto your spiders. I used orange and white icing to pipe mine on, but you could use anything you like - candies, icing or cake gel.

Phew! We're done! I know that this looks like a huge list of things to do, but if you make and ice the tops of the cupcakes one day, and then decorate them with spiders the next, it really isn't bad to do at all :)

These creepy spiders are perfect for kids parties, or even just for your own family or friends!

I hope you liked this spooky post! Stay tuned for my next sweet post: dairy and egg free chocolate cupcakes!