The Sweetest Kitchen » halloween

Halloween & Autumn Cupcakes

Jamieanne — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:20:03 +0000

Can you believe Halloween is just around the corner? It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been a full one year since the last one. I could swear that time is speeding up. Just for the time it takes you to read this post, I’d like to take you back in time to last year’s Halloween.

In October 2009 there were two cupcake challenges that I participated in. One was Iron Cupcake: Earth, where the theme was “music”; the other was Cupcake Hero, where the theme was “Halloween/pumpkin”. I wanted to compete in both. I also had a package of zombie hands and spiders cupcake toppers that I had ordered from Bake It Pretty. Hm, how to put them to good use while coming up with an idea for both competitions….

This scary zombie cupcake was thus born. I entered it into Iron Cupcake: Earth, and the song I chose to go with it was one of the best all-time songs ever, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. It was perfect! I entered it into Cupcake Hero as well. It wasn’t very popular in the voting polls, but that’s okay because since posting it on my blog, this cupcake has received thousands of more views than any other recipe I’ve posted. I’m surprised to see that this year, my zombie hand cupcake is once again the most popular recipe on my blog so far in October. It was even listed in the St Louis River Front Times in the Best Twelve Halloween-Themed Cupcakes (at #9) on October 12, 2010.

Click here to view the original post with more pictures and details. To sum it up, the zombie hand cupcake is made up of a chocolate pumpkin cupcake filled with pumpkin buttercream. It is frosted in a mound of chocolate frosting which is completely coated with finely crushed Oreos. The “tombstone” is one half of an Oreo Fudgee cookie.

Okay, so that cupcake took care of my zombie hands, but I still had the spiders to use…

These are one of THE best cupcakes I have EVER had the pleasure of eating and making. These little cuppies blew my mind. The inspiration for the combination of flavors came from looking at one simple recipe for a caramel pumpkin pie. A little later, I turned that idea into these pumpkin dulce de leche cupcakes. They start with a pumpkin cupcake that is filled with dulce de leche. They are frosted with dulce de leche buttercream and the spiderweb design is simply melted chocolate with a smidgen of shortening mixed in. The spiders looked great on them. And I entered these into Cupcake Hero as well, which won me a place in the throwdown with Samantha of Sweet Remedy – we ended up tying for first place!

I just can’t express in words how delicious these were, you just have to make them for yourself!

Now back in October of 2010, I still have the zombie hands and spiders, but I haven’t made any Halloween cupcakes this year. I’m not even sure if I will at all. Halloween isn’t so big in Australia, and making Autumn-themed food is a little out of season, as it is Spring here! But, while I haven’t been inspired to make a Halloween cupcake, I was inspired to make an Autumn one. I grew up in Indiana, I’ve spent a huge majority of my life there, so this time of year is naturally Autumn to me. I wanted to make a contribution to Autumn-themed food in the Northern Hemisphere, even though I’m not there to enjoy the beautiful red, orange and yellow trees, the pumpkin pies and festivals…

So I bring you a little pumpkin cupcake with white chocolate frosting, drizzled in caramel sauce and topped off with a shard of walnut praline. It’s the first cupcake picture I’ve ever taken outside. It’s sort of a contrast in a way, to me, with this Autumn-themed cupcake, sitting on bright green grass. Autumn should be chilly, the deciduous vegetation should be turning brown, but here in Sydney, it is Spring, and whatever was dormant over the Winter is now coming back to life in brilliant shades of green. Beautiful, yes, but it’s completely backwards to me. It’s something I will never get used to.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
7.5 ounces pureed pumpkin

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

White Chocolate Frosting
Adapted from Inside BruCrew Life
Makes enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes, plus extra

Ingredients
6 oz. white baking chocolate (chopped up)
1/4 c. heavy cream
2 sticks butter
1 1/4 c. powdered sugar
splash of vanilla

Method
Stir white choc and whipping cream in pan on low heat until melted and smooth. Cool. Add butter, sugar, and vanilla and beat on high until light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes.

Caramel Sauce

I just used a weak store-bought caramel sauce to save on time, but feel free to make your own so that the caramel is dark, thick and delicious. The salted butter caramel sauce from this recipe at Almost Bourdain would be a great addition to these cupcakes.

Walnut Praline
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes about 2/3 cup

Ingredients
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup walnuts
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method
Spray a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray; set aside.

Bring sugar and 1/4 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Swirl pan to dissolve sugar. Wash down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent crystals from forming. Boil until sugar turns light amber, about 7 minutes. Add walnuts and salt; cook, stirring constantly, until walnuts are toasted and caramel turns dark amber. Pour onto prepared sheet. Let cool completely.

Break into shards and poke down into the tops of the cupcakes.

Dulce De Leche Pumpkin Cupcakes

Jamieanne — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Unfortunately, dulce de leche isn’t available in most stores, but you can make it yourself at home quite easily with a can of sweetened condensed milk. There are many methods to do this – you can boil the can, opened or unopened for a few hours; you can use an oven; you can use a double boiler; you can use a microwave; you can even make dulce de leche from scratch. Whatever method you choose to make your dulce de leche, you’ll be rewarded with a thick, caramelly goo that you can use in your coffee, ice cream, brownies, cupcakes, cookies, and lots more.

My second batch of Halloween cupcakes, baked especially for October‘s Cupcake Hero, uses dulce de leche, which I chose to make in the oven. Mine took about 1 hour, 15 minutes at 425°F. It didn’t turn very dark before the top of the dulce de leche started to turn a little hard and dark brown around the edges, even though I had it tightly covered with foil. I used an electric mixer to smooth out the lumps, but little tiny bits of the burnt edges remained. It didn’t affect the taste, though; it tastes great!

These are delicious and super moist pumpkin cupcakes, filled with dulce de leche and frosted with dulce de leche buttercream. The web is made from melted semisweet chocolate and an awesome, creepy spider from Bake It Pretty adorns each cupcake.

The chocolate web is very easy to make. I melted 2-3 tablespoons of semisweet chocolate chips, with about 1/4 teaspoon of shortening to make the chocolate a little looser, and spooned it into a Ziploc bag. I then cut off a very tiny sliver of the bottom corner of the bag and piped four circles on top of each cupcake. I would have used a toothpick to draw through the circles, but I didn’t have any, so I used an uncooked stick of spaghetti that I had broken down to the length of a toothpick! But I just simply pulled the spaghetti stick through the circles, starting from the center for each line. Easy spiderweb decoration!

These cupcakes are quite rich, and I knew they would be before I even made them, but they are absolutely delicious. The pumpkin and caramel go very well together. If you’re not after so rich of a cupcake, skip the dulce de leche filling and just use the dulce de leche buttercream on top.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 12 cupcakes

In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.

Once cooled, using the cone method, fill each cupcake with a dollop of dulce de leche and frost with dulce de leche buttercream. If desired, decorate cupcake with spiderweb design using 3 tablespoons chocolate chips melted together with 1/4 teaspoon shortening.

Dulce De Leche
Adapted from Recipe Girl
Makes just enough to fill cupcakes and use in frosting

Ingredients
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
boiling water

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Open up the can and pour the sweetened-condensed milk into a pie pan. Cover tightly with foil. Place into a larger pan and pour boiling water in larger pan & around pie plate (level of water should be about halfway up the pie plate). Don’t let any water seep up and into the pie plate.

Place in oven and bake for 1 hour. At the one hour point, peel off foil and check for progress. If the mixture has thickened and turned a caramelly color, it’s done. If it doesn’t quite look thick enough or dark enough, cover it up and bake it a little longer (mine took 75 minutes).

When the mixture appears to have turned into a nice, thick caramel, remove from the oven. Let sit for a few minutes, and then beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

Dulce De Leche Buttercream
Adapted from Joy The Baker
Makes enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons prepared dulce de leche

Method
Cream together softened butter and powdered sugar on low using an electric mixer. Add cream and vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth and no lumps appear. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the prepared dulce de leche and beat to incorporate.

Zombie Halloween Cupcakes

Jamieanne — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:47:05 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I was leisurely browsing through Bake It Pretty, in particular the Halloween decorations. When I saw the zombie hand cupcake toppers, I knew I had to order them and make a batch of Halloween cupcakes. I have never made a Halloween cupcake before; the closest I’ve came were these pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, but they weren’t exactly scary!

But these are! This is what I created with Martha Stewart’s awesome Halloween cupcake liners, Bake It Pretty’s zombie hand toppers and a couple of Oreo cookies.

I’ll break it down for you. First of all, if you’re making Halloween cupcakes, you’ll need these cupcake liners from Martha Stewart. You can find them at Michael’s craft stores for about $4.

Next, I baked a batch of chocolate pumpkin cupcakes. I’ve used this recipe before and liked the result. Then, I whipped up some pumpkin buttercream to fill these cupcakes with.

The cupcakes are frosted with a plain chocolate buttercream, and perhaps there’s a bit too much frosting for my own liking, but I wanted a nice big round top on these.

I finely crushed 10 Oreo sandwich cookies, which ended up being way too many for 12 cupcakes; 6 probably would have been enough. I dipped each cupcake top into the crushed Oreos to completely coat them.

For the “tombstones”, I found Oreo Fudgees made perfect-shaped tombstones. I took the Fudgee sandwich cookies apart, scraped off the filling and stuck one side of the Fudgee into each cupcake, then stuck a zombie hand in front of the tombstones.

They’re quite spicy; I can taste a hint of ginger over all the other spices in the cupcake and filling (the filling had the most ginger). And like I said, there’s a bit too much chocolate frosting, which makes a bit too sweet for me. The kids love them though! The decorations make a perfect Halloween cupcake – remember, you can find the zombie hands at Bake It Pretty’s Halloween shop!

This is my entry into Iron Cupcake: Earth for October’s theme ingredient “music” – these cupcakes are perfect for one of my favorite songs by the late Michael Jackson, “Thriller”!

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

I’m also entering these cupcakes into Cupcake Hero for October’s theme ingredient of pumpkin and/or Halloween. This will be my first ever entry into Cupcake Hero!

Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes
Adapted from Country Living
Makes 12 cupcakes*

Ingredients
1 cup + 2 1/2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 3 3/4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup + 2 1/2 teaspoons buttermilk
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 3/4 teaspoons pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2.25 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 3/4 teaspoons dark brown sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 3/4 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs

For Oreo decorations:
7 finely crushed Oreo sandwich cookies
6 Oreo Fudgees sandwich cookies, pulled apart and filling removed
12 zombie hand cupcake toppers from Bake It Pretty

Method
Preheat oven to 350F; line a cupcake tin with paper liners.

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl; set aside.

Combine buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla in a bowl; set aside.

Beat butter and sugars together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk mixture, blending well after each addition.

Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool cupcakes completely, then using the cone method, fill cupcakes with pumpkin buttercream (recipe follows).

Frost each cupcake with chocolate frosting (recipe follows), then dip the frosted tops into the finely crushed Oreos to evenly coat. Stick an Oreo Fudgee “tombstone” into the top of each cupcake, and place a zombie hand in front of it.

*The original recipe yields 36 cupcakes, but I divided the recipe into fourths, which is why the amounts of the ingredients are a little strange!

Pumpkin Buttercream
Adapted from A Year In The Kitchen
Makes enough to fill 12 cupcakes (plus some left over)

Ingredients
1/2 cup + 2 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons + 1 1/8 teaspoons pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces confectioners’ sugar

Method
With electric mixer, cream butter and pumpkin (mixture will look grainy). Turn mixer to low and add cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla. Slowly add 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar at a time until the buttercream is creamy and no longer separating (the mixture will look grainy if there isn’t enough sugar mixed in).

Chocolate Buttercream
Adapted from a post at Cupcakes Take The Cake
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes (plus some left over)

Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup milk (plus a few tablespoons to adjust consistency)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Beat butter and cocoa until smooth, then add sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until smooth with each addition . Add milk and vanilla and beat for about 3 minutes.