So we’re now into the exciting autumn season of pumpkin spice lattes, spooky decorations and horrendous rain. I thought I’d share a halloween cupcake game I came up with last year. A great idea for fun at a party, pre drinks or just an October girly night in. The idea is that you flavour each cake with something that doesn’t match the colour. Make about three different combinations, and have one surprise flavour- tabasco, vinegar, that sort of thing. The game is to guess the flavour of your cupcake, and see who gets the shock!
Recipe makes 12 cupcakes
ingredients
• 125 grams self-raising flour (or plain flour with a teaspoon of baking powder)
• 125 grams caster sugar
• 125 grams soft unsalted butter (margarine works too if you’re being healthy, but butter tastes the best!)
• 2 eggs
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk (semi skimmed is preferable as skimmed is too thin, and whole can taste quite stodgy when combined with the butter)
• Buttercream icing- Tate and Lyle have a good recipe on their icing sugar packets, or you can buy a great can with changeable nozzles from Dr. Oetker that’s super easy to decorate with.
• Food colouring- green, red, orange, black; whatever spooky colours you can think of!
• flavours- again this is your call, as long as the flavour doesn’t match the colour… for example I used chocolate for the orange, chilli for the green and caramel for the red.
• Cupcake decorations- pretty flexible, so go mad! Hobbycraft have a great selection of pre-made halloween cake decorations (as well as cute seasonal cupcake cases), or if you’re skint/feeling creative you can make your own out of royal icing. I like chopping two slices off the top of a cupcake using black food colouring to make into wings, and adding a vampire or bat face!
method
• pre-heat oven to 200
• cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl
• next, sift in the flour gradually (if using baking powder add it at this stage)
• add in the sugar and vanilla essence and combine
• divide mixture equally into three smaller bowls
• mix one drop of colouring and one drop of flavour of your choice into each bowl and stir
• divide the mixture into the cases. the recipe makes 12, so aim for four of each colour/ flavour combination. although it may look like the cases aren’t too full, remember that the mixture will rise and the cakes will be decorated so don’t stress!
• bake for about 15 minutes in a fan oven or 20 in a regular on the middle shelf. the cooking time does vary, so make sure to do the fork test before removing from the oven- if you can put a fork into the cake and remove it with no mixture stuck to it, the cakes are ready.
• leave on a cooling rack until cakes have completely lost their heat
• decorate as you wish
• ta dah!