Belated Halloween Cupcakes

Festive baking? It doesn't get much better than that, except perhaps festive drinking... I just loved baking these Halloween cupcakes with a friend of mine who had actually never baked cake or cupcakes! She ended up loving it of course. Once again, we decided we would go for a variety of both Chocolate and Vanilla flavoured cupcakes to suit everyone’s tastes. The one slight challenge with baking these cupcakes is that we baked them on holiday in Donegal, so we had to bring everything we needed with us and were dependant on a rather temperamental oven. Once again, I turned to my old faithful baking bible by Mary Berry. The decision to baked cupcakes lead to a debate between a friend and I on whether they are called cupcakes or buns...? Of course, they are truly cupcakes, but they are also a type of bun. But i think the name bun refers to a fairy cake more. The difference between a fairy cake and a cupcake is in the cases. Cupcakes are baked in deeper cases that have less angular sides. But both still require a cupcake baking tray to keep their shape throughout the baking process. Right! Let’s get started with what we are going to need. Utensils -Large bowl -Wooden spoon -measuring spoons -scales -sieve -butter knife -spoon

Ingredients -100g (4oz) softened butter -150g (5oz) self-rising flour -150g (5oz) caster sugar -3 tablespoons milk -2 large eggs -1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract -cocoa powder (amount depends on how chocolatey you would like your cupcakes) -water Now onto the recipe... 1) Of course, we need to start as we always do with preheating the oven to 180ºC/Fan 160º/Gas 4 2) Then we put our Halloween cupcake cases into 12-hole and 6-hole muffin tin. We ended up doubling the recipe as we had a lot of family on holiday with us and didn't want to be run out! (Trust me... we ended up with far too many cupcakes!) 3) Start by measuring out the butter into a microwave proof mixing bowl with your scales. Then I recommend microwaving the butter with 20 second intervals until it is easily broken up with your wooden spoon. 4) Weigh out the caster sugar into the same bowl as the butter. 5) Mix thoroughly until creamy and smooth. 6) Then add your eggs (ensuring not to get any shell in the mixture) and mix until blended. 7) Weigh out the flour and sieve into the mixture. Then fold in gently to avoid making a mess until mixed properly. 8) Finally add the vanilla extract and milk to the mixture and ensure its all mixed together. Now is when we portioned out the mixture into all of the cases leaving a 1/3 into the bowl. 9) Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20-25 minutes until risen and golden brown. 10) After baking leave to cool properly before icing. At this point we then added cocoa powder and water paste to the remaining mixture until it tastes nice a chocolatey! Then add these to some Halloween cupcake cases and bake once again at the same temperature and for the same amount of time. Now all the cupcakes have been baked it’s time to add some decorations and add that Halloween touch. I choose to use some different coloured fondants and shape them into some fun Halloween designs. For this part I recommend using Pinterest for inspiration. Icing sugar is ideal for making the fondant not stick to the surface and your hands. And a dab of water or butter cream will stick fondant to fondant or cupcake to cupcake. For the buttercream we decided to just make chocolate buttercream using softened butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder, and water. Ingredients 175g (6oz) softened butter 350g (12oz) sifted icing sugar Once again, I just added cocoa powder until it was a true chocolatey flavour. Be sure to only use a small amount of water to mix the cocoa powder with, otherwise your buttercream will end up to0 runny. I then roughly iced most of the chocolate cupcakes and popped a chocolate pumpkin on top. Now eventually all the cupcakes are decorated!

One of my cousin's enjoying a pumpkin cupcake!