Young Cooking

We love holidays around here, they are the perfect excuse to make fun desserts. My husband was rather insistent that we make Halloween cupcakes. To save us some time, we made the cake part of the cupcake out of a store bought cake mix.

Cake: Mix all the ingredients according to the packaging. Distribute the batter into 24 cupcake liners.

Bake them in the oven, and check on them 2 minutes before the expected finish time using the toothpick trick. Set on a cooling rack to cool completely (about 15 minutes).

Frosting: The frosting must be home made. Store bought frosting is full of trans fat, and lacks true butter cream flavor. I got this recipe with a Williams-Sonoma Easter Bunny pan. We loved it so much, we have been using it ever since.

Using the whisk attachment on the mixer, add all the above ingredients. (Note: cover the bowl before turning on the mixer to prevent powdered sugar everywhere). Add additional milk if necessary to achieve the desired consistency.

Now that the basic butter cream frosting is complete, it’s time to color it. We made 25% of the frosting into black, and 75% of the frosting orange. Black can be bought at the grocery store - just add a few drops, with a couple teaspoons of cocoa powder to achieve black. Orange is a mix of red and yellow added to the white frosting. Add a few drops at a time, mix, and repeat until you reach the right color.

Construction: This is the fun part, and where the husband gets to help out. First frost the cupcakes with the vibrant orange. Next, Using the black frosting in a pastry bag or gun, add the design of your (husband’s) choice to the top of each cupcake.

And that’s it. It’s hard to go wrong with the designs. They are delicious, fun, and easy.  I stacked them on my favorite cupcake tree, and they are ready to be eaten (most likely with our coworkers).