Half term has begun and Halloween is upon us. Are you throwing a Halloween party? Have you got kids heading off for some Trick Or Treating? Do you miss that full bag of Trick or Treating goodies? Or are you just simply a chocolate fan? Well this Halloween cupcake recipe is for you. Don’t think too hard about how gruesome the actual concept of these cupcake are but just think about how they are a lot of fun for children and adults alike to make. There are a few elements to these cupcakes but well worth the effort and a great thing to occupy the kiddies this half term. Also, the actual recipes are super quick and easy to make. The reason for their name, which Liam came up with is because I used supremely dark chocolate making the “mud” a bit bitter and not very sweet. I would recommend using a sweeter chocolate than I did.
INGREDIENTS
CUPCAKES
Makes 8 large cupcakes
112g butter
112g caster sugar
2 eggs
112g self-raising flower
2ml vanilla extract
30g cocoa powder
TOMBSTONES
Makes way too many tombstones
Tube of black writing icing
50g butter
25g caster sugar
A couple of drops of vanilla essence
82g plain flour
MUD
1 packet of standard Oreos
50g of Chocolate
RECIPE
CUPCAKES
•Preheat oven to 175º
•Mix the sugar, flour, butter and vanilla extract until blended together.
•Add the eggs.
•Spoon the mixture into muffin cases or what I did was use silicon muffin cases. Only half fill your cases to prevent too much muffin overhang.
•Cook for 15-20 minutes. Check if they are done by popping a knife in the centre of each cake to see if it comes out clean.
•Leave your cakes to cool and slice over the rounded top to create a flat top to place your mud on.
TOMBSTONES
•Preheat the over to 150º.
•Add the sugar and butter together and mix together until light and fluffy.
•Add in the vanilla extract and flour and mix together.
•Use your fingers to bind together all of the ingredients until it turns into a lovely soft dough.
•Roll out to 5mm thick and using a knife, slice the shapes of tombstones and place onto a greased baking tray.
•Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden, you want these biscuits to be nice and hard before placing them into the cakes so leave them to cool for a while before attempting to assemble them or writing on them.
MUD
•Open up your Oreo’s and scrape out the majority of the cream filling.
•Put all of the Oreo’s in a mixing bowl and use a potato masher to smash them to pieces.
•Allow the smashing to be rough. Having bigger pieces and dustier pieces makes for more realistic mud.
•Melt your chocolate and mix in the crushed Oreo’s. I left the dust from the bottom of the bowl to sprinkle over the cakes.
•Spread the “mud” over your cupcakes.
•Use a knife to slice a line on the cakes to pop your tombstones in.
•Once the tombstones are placed in, sprinkle your remainder mud dust over the cupcakes and tombstones.
VOILA, there you have some rather realistic tombstones which taste like chocolatey heaven, enjoy and make sure you tag me in any photos @itsmegantaylor
