festive cupcakes

Holidays make blogging so easy, there are a hundred things you can do! So for the party tonight, I chose to make some halloween inspired cupcakes. Here's how I did it.

First, gather all of your ingredients. That's : a cake mix (if you're like me and have a whole store of them in your cupboards), chocolate frosting, vanilla frosting, eggs, water (I prefer water, but the package states milk could also be used), applesauce (this is to replace the oil. Cuts down on the fat and helps to moisten them!), sprinkles, cake papers.




So despite the instructions on the package which say throw it all together and mix, if there is one thing I learned in cooking school it was to first combine ALL of your liquids, whip them up real good. Then add the dry. Again, whip it....Whip it good....


Fill each little cake paper, nearly to the top so they puff up. Then into the oven at 350'F degrees they go.




It should take around 17-20 minutes for the tops to start to get golden. If you poke a toothpick in and it comes out clean, then they're done. Place on cooling rack.


Wait about fifteen minutes before frosting, so it doesn't all melt and disappear. Now comes the fun part. Plop chocolate frosting onto the cupcake, then smear it out to the sides, smoothing it as you go and removing excess. Yum.


Now place vanilla frosting in a piping bag with a small round tip (or use a ziploc bag with the tip of one corner cut off). Use this to pipe a swirly pattern. Pretty, but not quite done.


Now, the really fun part. Using a toothpick, start in the centre and draw the pick out to the side. See how it pulls each ring out? Do about 6 or 8 of these and voila, spiderweb design!!


And here they are. For variety I did half of the cuocakes with spiderwebs, the other half got black and orange sprinkles. Well I can't wait to dig into them at the party tonight. Hope this can inspire you to make your own festive cupcakes. Thanks for reading!