Cupcake Conspiracy | Trick-or-treat!

INDIANAPOLIS - Cupcakes are probably by far the best way to treat your fiends, ahem, I mean friends, this Halloween. This always-versatile sweet can take on many shapes and forms, from monsters to witches to ooey, gooey and creepy crawly.

The good thing is that you can do this all yourself, and perfection isn’t necessarily needed when making gruesome, evil cupcakes. A little imagination, elbow grease and bucketful of candy go a long way. Here are several easy ways to help you make some fantastical fun Halloween cupcakes.

Photo Gallery: Halloween Cupcake Ideas

 

Spiderwebbing:

One of my favorite tricks which can be used in other instances. Ice cupcakes with a light color – white, green, orange or such. Make three concentric circles in chocolate or black icing on top. Try and get as thin a line as possible.

Drag a toothpick from the middle to the edge, pulling the darker icing into points. Repeat until you have created lines around the entire cupcake.

Click here for more help.

Fondant:

Fondant is a mighty pain, but if you are willing to take the time to try it, you can create many cute decorations.

This video tutorial shows you how to make a great Halloween pumpkin cupcake topper with fondant.

Batter layering:

Kandy korn cupcakes turnout perfectly with a layered batter. For measuring out cupcake batter, I always use ice cream scoops. I have two sizes, a large one for regular and jumbo-sized cupcakes and a small one for mini-cupcakes.

For layering for regular-sized cupcakes, use the small scoop. Make a golden batter a separate it into three bowls. Leave one as is, and add 3-4 drops of yellow food coloring to one, and 3-4 drops of orange food coloring to the other.

Scoop plain first, then yellow and finally orange into cupcake cups. Ice with a white buttercream and use kandy korn for embellishments.

More instructions here.

Cupcakes in a jar:

This by far deserves an entire article on its own, but for now – (cupcake) brains in a jar!

Go here for all the gory details.

Pro-tip:

Need some way to carry cupcakes? Take an old shirt gift box and cut X’s in it – imagine a sort of “cup holder.” Easy to carry and easy to dispose of when done. Have a hauntingly, happy Halloween!

Photo Gallery: Halloween Cupcake Ideas

See recipes on my tumblr food blog

Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

Follow Twinkle on Foodspotting, Tumblr and Twitter.