I wanted to get one more post in before Halloween, to hopefully inspire your own Halloween baking.  These Spider Cupcakes are black velvet cupcakes, a black spin on the delicious Red Velvet Cupcakes I made some time ago.  I love the Red Velvet cupcakes as they are light and almost fluffy with their velvet like texture, so thought they would be perfect in my Halloween cupcakes.

The cupcakes have been topped with a black buttercream frosting, although I was a bit disappointed the black looked more gray than anything.  Having said that though, I think the contrast works well as the frosting with sprinkled with a mixture of black nonpareils and black jimmy’s.  For the legs I used licorice twists.  The licorice I had was quite stiff, so I suggest getting a more pliable licorice if you can, this way you can give the legs a little movement.  For the eyes, I went with gold cashous, and I really liked the almost evil glow it gave the eyes.

I also had some exciting news I wanted to share with you.  Today Delicieux has been featured in The Hoopla Happy Hour.  The Hoopla is an online news and magazine site for wise, wonderful witty women run by Wendy Harmer and a dedicated team.  Each week The Hoopla Happy Hour features cocktails or nibbles that you can enjoy over a drink, and has featured some fantastic contributions from the likes of Donna Hay, Bill Granger, Marion Grasby, Belinda Jeffrey, Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer, as well as the lovely Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella, so I was extremely excited when I was contacted by one of The Hoopla team a little while ago and asked if I would like to contribute a recipe.  It’s a great site with lots of interesting articles, competitions and content, so it’s well worth checking out and please hop on over to check out my Chili, Lime and Smoked Paprika Pita Chip recipe as well as my French Martini recipe both featured in this weeks Hoopla Happy Hour.

So tell me, will you be doing anything special to celebrate Halloween?

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Spider Cupcakes

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

50 mins

 

Maes 12 to 14 cupcakes. Adapted from YumSugar Red Velvet cake recipe

Ingredients

• 170g butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2½ cups of plain flour,sifted
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon of warm water
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• black food colouring (optional)
• FROSTING
• 250g of room temperature butter, cut into cubes
• 1 cup of icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon of milk
• black food colouring
• DECORATIONS
• Black licorice
• Black nonpareils
• Black jimmys
• Gold cashous

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin/cupcake tin with cupcake wrappers.
2. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition.
4. Switch the mixer to a low speed and in a bowl or cup combine the sifted flour, salt and baking powder and add to the batter alternately with the buttermilk and mix until well combined.
5. Add the black food colouring. The amount you will need to use depends on how black you would like the cupcakes and the brand of colouring you are using. I used AmeriColour Super Black.
6. In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda together and add to the batter mixing on a medium speed for 10 seconds.
7. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake papers, filling each almost to the top and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. To make the frosting, add the icing sugar and butter into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add the milk and black food colouring and mix until well combined.
9. To assemble the spiders trim the licorice to 8cm lengths. Depending on the thickness of your licorice you may need to halve it.
10. Poke the legs into the side of the cupcakes, above the paper liner but below the top of the cupcake. Repeat with 4 on each side.
11. Spread the black frosting over the top of each cupcake before sprinkling with the nonpareils and jimmys. Place 2 gold cashous at the front for the eyes.

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