Halloween Cupcakes

An easy decorating tutorial (video included) for Halloween cupcakes, using cookies and candy to make owls, ghosts, and witch hats.

You might also love these recipes for black velvet cupcakes with chocolate skulls, and this collection of favorite Halloween cookie recipes.

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Equipment and Ingredients

• Disposable Piping Bags. I used 16-inch bags, plus tips 2A and 1M.
• Chocolate Cupcakes. You can use any flavor of cupcakes you like, but these chocolate cupcakes are super moist, and always a favorite.
• American Buttercream. This buttercream recipe is the perfect consistency, both for spreading or piping onto cakes and cupcakes.
• Oreos. Either Oreos or generic chocolate sandwich cookies are what you’ll need for the owl eyes, as well as the witch hats. I’m not going to lie – twisting apart a sandwich cookie so that one half has a perfect smooth circle of frosting is difficult. I’ve tried gently twisting, as well as sliding a sharp knife between the cookie and frosting to try to get them apart just right, but there’s no perfect method. You may have better luck with double stuff cookies, which have more frosting to work with.
• Reese’s Pieces or M&Ms. I like to use just the brown, orange, and yellow candy, which are the colors that you’ll get in a bag of Reese’s Pieces, or you can just pick the colors out of a bag of M&Ms.
• Chocolate Kisses. Paired with a cookie, a chocolate kiss makes the perfect pointed top for the witch hat.
• Sprinkles.
• Black Sugar Pearls. Use these to make the ghost eyes.

Instructions

Cupcakes and Buttercream

• Bake and cool the chocolate cupcakes.
• Make 3x the recipe for American buttercream. I used white/vanilla buttercream for the ghost, but added some cocoa powder to make chocolate buttercream for the owls. For the witch, I decided to use some black cocoa buttercream from my freezer, instead of using the vanilla buttercream.

Decorating Owl Cupcakes

• Twist apart Oreos or chocolate sandwich cookies, and use a knife to lightly scrape the frosting on one half of the cookie so that it’s smooth and free of crumbs.
• Press brown M&Ms or Reese’s Pieces candy to the cookies to make the eyeball.
• Use a small offset icing spatula to frost the cupcakes with brown/chocolate buttercream.
• Arrange the eyes on top of the cookies, then add more candy to make the nose and eyebrows.

Decorating Witch Hat Cupcakes

• Fit a piping bag with a large open star tip (tip 1M), and fill with buttercream. You can tint the vanilla buttercream any color you like, or use black cocoa buttercream like I did. Pipe a ruffly swirl on top of the cupcakes.
• Scatter sprinkles over the buttercream.
• Use a little buttercream to “glue” a chocolate kiss onto one half of a chocolate cookie to make the hats. Press the hat on top of the buttercream.

Decorating Ghost Cupcakes

• Fit a piping bag with a large round tip (2A), and fill with vanilla buttercream. Pipe a simple swirl on top of the cupcakes.
• Add two black sugar pearls for the eyes.

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