Halloween Cupcakes

I enjoy decorating cupcakes almost as much as I enjoy eating them. Decorating these Halloween cupcakes is so easy that anyone can do it, even a grown up! You can, of course, use your favorite cupcake and frosting recipes but I used gluten-free cake mixes and pre-made frosting – it was easier and faster that way.

To show off my awesome cupcakes, I decorated an ordinary cake stand with scrapbook stickers and fake jewels that I found at the craft store and some cheese cloth that I cut and stretched out to make look like spiderwebs. And of course I had to add some spiders!

Decorated cupcakes don’t have to look perfect. It is more important to have fun (and to try out a cupcake or two!).

Mummy Cupcakes

What you need:

12 gluten-free cupcakes, any flavor
12 ounces chocolate frosting
12 ounces vanilla frosting
Disposable pastry bags
#47 or #48 Basket Weave cake decorating tip with a coupler
24 red gluten-free jelly beans

Frost the cupcakes with the chocolate frosting. Put the Basket Weave tip on the pastry bag and fill it with the vanilla frosting. Pipe frosting lines back and forth across the top of the cupcake. To make it look really cool, have a few of the lines overlap and don’t make them all straight. Place 2 jelly beans where the eyes would be.

Candy Corn Cupcakes

What you need:

Gluten-free white or yellow cake mix (plus the ingredients that the mix calls for)
Yellow gel food coloring
Orange gel food coloring
48 white mini cupcake paper liners
2 (24 each) mini cupcake pans
Star cake decorating tip with coupler
Disposable pastry bag
12 ounces vanilla frosting
48 candy corns

Make the cake mix as directed on the package. Pour half the batter into one bowl and half into another. Put a few drops of yellow food coloring into one bowl. Stir. If you need it more yellow, add more food coloring, a little at a time. Do the same with the orange food coloring and the other half of the cake batter.

Put the cupcake liners in the pans and divide the yellow batter among the cupcake cups. Gently top the yellow batter with the orange batter. It should say on the box of cake mix the bake time for regular cupcakes. Bake the mini cupcakes for about 10 minutes less than for regular sized cupcakes. The cupcakes will feel springy when an adult touches them lightly and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Let the cupcakes cool completely.

Put the tip on the pastry bag and fill with frosting. Pipe some frosting on each cupcake. Top with 1 candy corn per cupcake.

Graveyard Cupcakes

What you need:

12 gluten-free chocolate cupcakes
12 ounces chocolate frosting
12 gluten-free chocolate sandwich cookies
12 toothpicks
1 tube gluten-free white decorating icing
12 gluten-free gummy worms
Gluten-free jelly beans

Frost the cupcakes with the chocolate frosting. Separate the chocolate sandwich cookies. Scrape off and discard the cream filling. (You don’t have to get it all off. A little bit gives your tombstones a nice moldy look.) Cut off the very bottom of one of the cookie halves with a serrated knife so you have a flat side or ask a grown up to help you. Repeat with all the cookies so that you have 12 cookie halves that have been cut and 12 that have not. Put the uncut cookies along with any pieces left over from cutting the other cookie halves in a plastic bag. Close it and then crush the cookies with a rolling pin until they look like dirt. Sprinkle the cookie dirt on the top of the cupcakes.

With the decorating icing, write on the side of the cut cookie that the filling used to be on. Make sure that the flat side of the cookie is the bottom of your tombstone. You can write things like RIP, Boo, or people’s initials. Stick the cookies into the frosting and prop up the back with a toothpick if you need to. Cut the gummy worms in half and stick a half into each side of the cupcakes. Place 2 jellybean “grubs” on each cupcake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Milla Kicinski is a 10 (going on 11!) year old who enjoys designing doll clothes, skateboarding, crafting, and baking. All cupcake decorating, photo styling, and photography in this article were done by Milla. Milla has guest posted on her mother’s wildly popular lifestyle blog, Bleubird Vintage (www.bleubirdblog.com).

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