Making Halloween Cupcakes is Like Riding a Broom

Making cupcakes is a relatively easy task. Decorating them with a Halloween theme should be simple, right? With all good intentions, I set upon making Halloween cupcakes thinking this is a 1-2 hour project. However, there are so many unexpected twists and turns, I feel like a witch on a broom playing quidditch on a Harry Potter movie set.

Also, please read to the bottom to see other Halloween inspired posts by a group of talented women.

Easy Ingredients

Naturally you can make cupcakes from scratch but a wonderful shortcut is to use a pre-mix. Seasonally, Trader Joe’s carries their Pumpkin Bread and Muffin Mix and it currently available in their stores. During the fall, I keep a few boxes in the pantry because it is a good staple that you can change up with different ingredients.

The Mix – combine with eggs, oil, and water – makes a generous loaf of moist and fluffy, lightly spiced pumpkin bread, or a dozen standard-sized muffins. If you find yourself feeling adventurous, add chopped nuts; dried fruit like raisins, cranberries, or apples; or shredded carrots or zucchini for an extra splash of color and texture.

For this recipe, I add 72% cacao dark chocolate chips (also from Trader Joe’s).

All of this comes together easily and my batch makes 15 (not 12) perfectly formed cupcakes. I also use green and white striped paper cupcake holders, but you can use black or any other color you’d like!

Making the Frosting

Cupcakes need frosting so I make Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting from one of my favorite dessert cookbooks, Layered. To get the frosting recipe, click here. Granted, making your own frosting may sound intimidating, but if you have unsalted butter, sugar, egg whites and vanilla, and a mixer it is rather simple.

Heating the egg white/sugar mixture to 160 degrees is made easy by the use of this tool. It is one of the best cooking gifts I have received (thank you, son!) and I highly recommend it. This would be the perfect holiday gift for the cook in your family. You can find it here.

Adding butter and vanilla completes the frosting recipe and it is whipped and ready to gol

Inspired by an old picture of Halloween cupcakes from a 2012 edition of Better Homes and Gardens, I really want the cupcakes to have black frosting. Surprisingly I have never made black frosting….ever. But, I do have a box of various food colorings and gels, so I am happy to see that in my stash I have black food coloring.

I carefully make the buttercream frosting and in the last few minutes of beating, I add several drops of the black food coloring. The frosting is gray. I add more drops. It is a battleship gray. Sigh. Thinking I have made a mistake, I check the label on the small bottle and it clearly states “black”. Even though the bottle is not full, I empty the contents into the frosting. It remains an ugly darker gray.

Then I add green and dark blue. It’s still an ugly gray, now gray/greenish/blue and looks like the bottom of a swamp

What to Do?!?

This perhaps is the WORST color frosting I’ve ever seen! After opening and closing the bottle so much, I notice my freshly painted fingernails (which I am trying to improve) are stained black. And black droplets have stained my forearms.

In looking around the kitchen, it appears the food coloring has splattered on the counters too with a few drops on the floor. Yikes. I quickly grab a roll of paper towels and try wiping up this incursive food coloring. It seems to be spreading everywhere. Fortunately I didn’t get any on my clothing, but even had some on my neck (how in the heck did that get there?)

Totally frustrated with the rather ugly frosting, I taste it….which is marvelous, by the way. But then I thought if it is staining everything else, are my teeth black….or an ugly gray? I run to the mirror and yes, they are sort of the same disgusting color as the frosting. Of course, during this whole time, did I think about taking pictures? No!

I stop this project and google “how to make black frosting”. Lo and behold it is certainly not with black food coloring. Here is the link to making real black frosting and I probably should have done my homework before I started this “easy” project.

With half the kitchen garbage can filled with black stained paper towels and me with my black cuticles and gray teeth, I just give up. I frost the cupcakes with my large bowl of ugly buttercream and add my witches “legs”.

Making Witches Legs and Shoes

You can use any color, but I did have some leftover green/white striped paper straws. Cutting the straws to approximately 3 inches, I notch the ends to fit the witch shoes.

There are many examples of witch’s shoes on the internet. You can either download a sample or sketch your own. Make sure you have a right and left shoe. I make a template and then trace it on black card stock paper.

Place the shoe in the notch at the end of the straw. Make sure they are facing the correct way or your witch will be pigeon-toed. Stick the straw in the frosted cupcake. With some leftover Halloween crafts, I add a few tombstones and spiders too!

Lessons Learned

On a scale of 1 to 10, I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about baking and cooking~maybe a 6 or 7. So this particular obstacle of making black frosting took me by surprise and naturally, I didn’t plan for it. What started out as a simple making Halloween cupcakes did turn into a complete mess in my kitchen and cupcakes that will turn your teeth a grayish green.

What is wonderful about family is that they loved them anyway! The flavor is there and they do look a bit frightful~which is in keeping with the Halloween theme.

Next time, I would just make the frosting white, or orange or purple~something easier. Or truly understand what it means to make black frosting.

In spite of all the frosting challenges, the cupcakes do look Halloween-ish!

Thanks for joining me today! Have a wonderful day and I hope you are already thinking about spooky Halloween fun.

Now On to Other Halloween Ideas

Setting a Fun Halloween Party Table from Celebrate and Decorate

A Quick and Simple Fall Patio from A Life Unfolding

20 Amazing and Easy Dollar Tree Halloween Crafts from Chas’ Crazy Creations

DIY Jack O’Lantern Using a Lantern from Design Morsels

Easy Halloween Dog Toys with your Cricut from Happily Ever After Etc.