How to make spooky Halloween cupcakes for your kids this year

What's more Halloween than getting creative while also consuming an ungodly amount of sugar? Thankfully, we have some top notch cupcake ideas to keep your little ones entertained on a budget.

Jack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcakes

Credit: Jungle Creations

You will need:

• White buttercream in a piping bag
• Black buttercream in a piping bag
• 19 Cupcakes
• Palette knife
• Cocktail stick

Method:

1) Push your cupcakes together into a circular shape, trying to avoid big gaps.

2) Pipe the buttercream across the cupcakes, covering them entirely.

3) Using a palette knife smooth the buttercream over till it is a flat surface.

*TOP TIP* To create an even smoother surface put your palette knife in hot water, wipe clean and use this to smooth the buttercream.

4) Mark out the features with a cocktail stick, if you make any mistakes you can smooth it over and try again.

5) Fill in the details with black buttercream to create the hollow (and spooky) features of Jack Skellington.

6) To add even more eye-popping spooky realness to your masterpiece pipe more white buttercream around his eyes and mouth, then smooth out with a hot pallette knife to give a snazzy 3D effect.

7) Get the party to pull apart his face and consume his sugary flesh.

*TOP TIP* White buttercream is tough to make without it looking a bit yellow, brighten your whites by adding a touch of purple food gel colouring, this will balance out the yellow and give you an even whiter, spookier skeleton!

 

Spellbook Pull Apart Cupcakes

Credit: Jungle Creations

You will need;

• White buttercream in a piping bag
• Black buttercream in a piping bag
• Red buttercream in a piping bag
• 24 Cupcakes
• Palette knife

Method:

1. Assemble your cupcakes in 6 columns of 4 to create a rectangle.
2. Pipe white buttercream across the cupcakes, adding more to the two central columns to help with building up the thick pages of your open book.
3. Smooth out the buttercream; you want to smooth it so it is thicker around the middle two columns of cupcakes and thinner going out, with a dip right between the centre two columns for the crease of your cakey book.
4. Scrape a serrated knife across the sides of the cake to create the effect of pages.

*TOP TIP* To make the book look old and beaten use a knife to mark the corners of the ‘pages’

   5) Now the fun part! Using the black and red buttercream pipe spells, words and symbols onto the book. You can do whatever you like; even use inspiration from a famous scarred wizard or a horror movie or two!

6) Devour your creation with as many hands as possible (without accidentally casting any hexes mid-nibble).

 

Pull Apart Pumpkin

Credit: Jungle Creations

 

You will need:

19 cupcakes

Orange buttercream in piping bag

Green buttercream in piping bag

Cocktail stick

Palette knife

Method:

1. Arrange 18 of your cupcakes in a row formation of 4, 5, 5, 4 to create the shape of a pumpkin.
2. Pipe orange buttercream across them and smooth out with a palette knife. Creating a small dimple in the middle of the top and bottom rows of buttercream to help create that spooky pumpkin’y shape.
3. To create the pumpkin texture use the palette knife to swipe curved vertical lines in the buttercream across the entire cake.
4. Mark out your pumpkin design with a cocktail stick. You can go classic pumpkin eyes and grin or go crazy and do a complex spooky carving; up to you.
5. Fill in your design with the black buttercream and smooth out any bumps with the palette knife.
6. Add one final cupcake to the top of the pumpkin, right in the middle. Pipe a pumpkin stem onto this cupcake with the green buttercream. You can even add some viney tendrils if you are feeling fancy.
7. Hack away at your spooky sugar coated creation until your fingertips are orange and your belly full of delicious cake.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can share these with your children but not required.