Halloween Cupcakes

image courtesy of clevercupcakes

Hi everyone! I'm back after taking a long vacation with new recipes and ideas and decorating!
Before I get started on Halloween Cupcakes, I've gotten a lot of emails requesting cupcake recipes. I'm thrilled that everyone loves cupcakes so much, though about 50% of the recipes requested by email I already have posted on this site. So if I don't respond to your email, it's only because the recipe is already posted here!

Enough of that, let's talk Halloween! Halloween is probably one of my top three favorite holidays since I was a child. As a youngster, I loved dressing up and trick or treating. As a young adult I enjoyed dressing up and dancing, and as an adult I so much enjoy dressing up, giving out treats, and baking for the holiday. One of my favorite Halloween treats are Halloween cupcakes. They're so delicious and you can have unlimited fun decorating them.

A great base for your Halloween cupcakes is either a vanilla or a deep chocolate base. Chocolate cupcakes are good if you want to use white frosting (or orange) (or a swirl!) and vanilla cupcakes are good for a white base with orange and chocolate frosting or good if you want to add some orange food dye for an orange base. Either way, I would say keep your base simple because you're going to go crazy decorating Halloween cupcakes! If you do want to be more adventurous though, a great alternative is pumpkin cupcakes. They're very festive and perfect for the season.

You can find recipes on this site for all of your cupcake recipe needs and frosting recipe needs. Just look at the links on the right under labels!

Now lets get to the point: Halloween cupcake ideas. Before I start, most Halloween cupcakes will have a flat frosting, meaning no fancy swirls or peaks.

1. Pumpkin face decoration: This is by far my favorite Halloween cupcakes decoration. It's traditional and works every time. For this you will need to use vanilla frosting or pumpkin frosting. If you're using vanilla you need to use food dye to make an orange frosting, this can be accomplished by combining red and yellow. Lay a flat layer of the frosting on your Halloween cupcakes. Now you'll need a pastry bag with a small tip and fill it with chocolate frosting. Use the chocolate frosting to make the pumpkin face. Triangles for eyes and a toothy grin should do the trick!

2. Ghost cupcakes: These are fun and easy to decorate! These Halloween cupcakes are simple. I would use a chocolate cupcake for your base, or a orange vanilla or pumpkin base. Simply place a white, flat layer of frosting on the cupcake. Then take a marshmallow and place it on top of the frosting. You can frost the marshmallow for a more textured and ghost shaped Halloween cupcake or you can leave it bare. Now you'll need candy coated sesame seeds, or something similar and place it on the ghosts for the eyes! Viola! Perfect ghost cupcakes!

3. Candy corn cupcakes: These, too, are great Halloween cupcakes. They're easy to make and fun to eat. (They don't actually have candy corn in them). You will need chocolate cupcakes for this, and vanilla icing in white, yellow, and orange. You will also need a flat icing spatula for this one. First with your spatula plop down the white icing in the center of the cupcake. Pat it down in the center to push the edges out a little. Wipe off your spatula. Then take a smaller plop of orange frosting and plop it in the center of the white frosting. Pat it down in the center to push the edges out, but not quite as far as the white. Repeat this process with the yellow frosting but again with a smaller plop. Now take the spatula and carefully swirl these frosting together into a peak. You will apply slight pressure on the edge of the spatula and start from the outside of the frosting and work your way in and up!

4. Graveyard cupcakes: Again, a great treat and a perfect Halloween cupcakes. You will need chocolate frosting, green sprinkles and milano cookies cut in half. First put down a flat layer of chocolate frosting onto your cupcakes. Then sprinkle some green sprinkles over it, this is your grass. Take a pastry bag with a small tip and write things on the milano cookies such as "R.I.P" or put a cross. Now take the milano cookie and place it on the cupcakes, pushing it into the Halloween cupcakes slightly so that it will stay upright.

This should give you a great start in getting ready for Halloween!
These Halloween cupcakes ideas are sure to impress and you'll have so much fun baking and decorating them. Enjoy your Halloween and come back for more cupcake recipes and ideas.

Cream Cheese Frosting

image courtesy of elana's pantry
No cupcake is complete without frosting, and one of the most popular frosting is cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting is versatile and easy to prepare. It's often seen on red velvet cupcakes and carrot cupcakes, and zucchini cupcakes but gives a nice tang to chocolate cupcakes, too!
It's soft and creamy which makes it a fun consistency to decorate cupcakes with. It's easy to swoop and swirl around the top of your cupcakes. Basic cream cheese frosting can be altered with flavoring such as vanilla and maple to add some extra pizazz, but alone it holds a lot of character.

Here's a great recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting from my own personal collection!

8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter
12 oz cream cheese
3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract



Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature. In a mixing bowl, mix butter on medium speed until light and creamy. Add cream cheese and mix until fluffy. Slowly add the sugar, one cup at a time. Continue to mix. Finally, add the vanilla extract to the mixture and mix until it has a creamy consistency.

You can store this frosting for up to three days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. When you are ready to use it simply mix it with an electric mixer until it becomes smooth.

This should give you excellent frosting to top your cupcakes with! If you want to alter it to make it Maple Cream Cheese Frosting, simply add maple extract instead of vanilla. You can also play around with this cream cheese frosting by adding a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon. This will spice things up and tastes great on pumpkin cupcakes (Halloween!) or on apple spice cupcakes. Cream cheese frosting tastes great with most every cupcake though I wouldn't recommend topping off vanilla cupcakes with this frosting.

Though this recipe seems easy, it's still produces a very elegant frosting. The best frosting recipes, in my opinion, are easy to make because frosting shouldn't be too complex. Cream cheese frosting is easy to make, save the complexities for the cupcakes.

Other great ideas for your cream cheese frosting is to add some mini chocolate chips to it. Also, I have before experiment with using whipped heavy cream in place of half of the butter and this yields a delicious whipped cream cheese frosting. You can also add some shredded coconut on top of the cream cheese frosting. Finely chopped up mango also adds to this traditional recipe.

Since cream cheese frosting has cream cheese in it, make sure you store it in the refrigerator and don't leave it out too long. Also, don't leave it in the sun for too long because it will melt and become very messy. Aside from that, have fun! Experiment and enjoy your cupcakes, whatever they may be.

This cream cheese frosting recipe is the last one you will ever need.

Good luck and come back soon for more cupcake recipes and frosting recipes!

Homemade Chocolate Frosting

photo credit: Frances Berriman

Cupcake frosting comes in many different flavors but the staples remain vanilla and chocolate. Vanilla buttercream is probably the king of all frosting, but in a close second is chocolate frosting and there's nothing to wet the palate quite like a big bowl of homemade chocolate frosting. Chocolate frosting tops off any cupcake and tastes especially good atop vanilla cupcakes. Decorating chocolate frosting can also be a lot of fun. Generally I use muted and pastel sprinkles with white frosting, but with homemade chocolate frosting I like to use brighter colors: bright blues, yellows, purples, and pinks look especially nice.
Here's a great and easy recipe from my personal collection for homemade chocolate frosting.

Makes enough for around 30 cupcakes.

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
14 oz semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
2.5 TBSP milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups confectioners sugar

Beat butter until smooth. Add chocolate until combined. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and confectioners sugar and beat until combined on medium speed. Don't over mix!

That recipe should suit your craving for chocolate. It's very rich yet somehow always comes out just right. You can store the homemade chocolate frosting in a sealed container overnight and in a refrigerator for up to a few days. Let it sit until it's room temperature if you're going to store your homemade chocolate frosting in the refrigerator. Sometimes the chocolate frosting will dry out and if that's the case don't be afraid to add some milk and then beat until smooth and creamy. But be careful not to add too much milk, a little milk goes a long way and it's better to have to add more than to add too much.

Another thing to be aware of with homemade chocolate frosting is that it creates an outer shell very quickly. Generally when I make cupcakes with vanilla frosting I frost 24 at a time and then decorate with sprinkles or whatever else I might be using. I've found that anymore than 24 at a time and the frosting forms a thin hard shell on the outside and it loses it's stickiness making it more difficult to decorate. Chocolate frosting forms a shell even quicker and will lose it's stickiness soon after frosting the cupcakes. Of course it depends on how long it takes you to frost the cupcakes, but I usually decorate after 6, sometimes after 12 but 6 to be safe. Chocolate frosting forms a shell quicker because it has chocolate in it which is dryer than butter, which is the main ingredient in vanilla buttercream frosting.

If you want to add a little pizazz to your homemade chocolate frosting, I will suggest a few ways to go about it. You can always add chocolate chips. I find that mini chocolate chips work better than regular ones. You can also make a chocolate frosting swirl. This is simple, all you do is make two separate batches of frosting - one with darker chocolate and one with lighter. Depending on how you frost your cupcakes, the method of making a frosting swirl will differ. The way I do it is with a flat and long metal spatula. I first tap on one chocolate frosting and then in the center I tap on the other chocolate frosting. I then gently press down with the tip of the spatula and flick my wrist a make a swirl! It definitely takes some practice and getting used to, but once you figure it out you'll be making chocolate frosting swirls before I can say "I love cupcakes!".

One last idea for a twist on homemade chocolate frosting before we wrap up. This one is for all you people out there who like chocolate frosting but who also like white frosting (that's me!) Try substituting the chocolate for white chocolate. That way you'll have excellent white chocolate frosting that will pleasantly surprise anyone who takes a bight out of it. You can even make a chocolate frosting and white chocolate frosting swirl.

Enjoy your homemade chocolate frosting and come back for more great cupcake recipes!

Pink Frosting

photo credit: jspad

Lately I have gotten a few requests for a pink frosting recipe. I'm not really sure what is means by pink frosting, but I'll give it a go and give you a few options for topping your cupcakes with the pinkest frosting on this side of the Ecuador.

Pink Frosting Ideas:

If you are making regular buttercream frosting, turning it into pink frosting is a piece of cake (no pun intended). One of the great things about buttercream frosting is an ability to turn it virtually any color you'd like! So, to make pink frosting just add two drops of red food coloring or red food dye into the frosting after the recipe is completely. Mix it in and viola! If you'd like a deeper pink frosting, add another drop or two, and if you'd like a lighter pink frosting start of with just a drop. Easy as pie.

Another option is to add a splash of beet juice to the frosting. This is a great option because red food dye can be hazardous to your health and contains dangerous chemicals. Adding beet juice will also give you pink frosting and I suggest you use this method over the other. You make this pink frosting the same way: by adding a splash of beet juice to the frosting once it is completed. Beet juice can be very strong so be wary.

If you want a fruity pink frosting you have many options. Crushed raspberries create an amazing pink color and I've often used them to color frosting. Adding a handful of crushed raspberries will give you a nice pink frosting and give the flavor a little kick! You could also use cherries for pink frosting. Frozen cherries will add a nice color to the frosting, as well. And last but not least you could make your pink frosting using strawberries. Crushed or cut up, they'll definitely give you the color you want. Strawberries don't run as much as raspberries and cherries, so you'll probably have to use more to get the pink frosting you desire. Any of these will work fine, though.

Creating pink frosting is easy and you could use food dye to create any color frosting you desire, using the same method. For lighter, more pastel frosting use less and for deeper and richer colors use more. It's really simple and gives your cupcakes the pizazz you might be looking for.

Pink frosting is perfect for Valentine's day, bridal showers, baby showers, and birthdays for girls and women alike! No one doesn't like pink frosting and it really does it's job topping off your vanilla cupcakes. I hope your pink frosting is a hit!

Buttercream Frosting

photo credit: cupcakequeen @ flickr.com

There are a limitless variety of cupcake frosting but the most popular and versatile is buttercream frosting. This goes excellent with any kind of cupcake, including vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and red velvet cupcakes. Buttercream frosting is traditionally made with two main ingredients: butter and powdered sugar. These are mixed together to make a rich, sweet, and creamy frosting.

Here is my buttercream frosting recipe, which will be a wonderful frosting to top off your cupcakes with.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Makes enough frosting for about 2 dozen cupcakes

1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature

6-8 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of milk
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1. In an electric mixing bowl fitted with the paddle attachment or if you don't have an electric mixing bowl use a large bowl and an electric mixer, mix the butter until smooth and creamy (a few minutes).
2. Add 4 cups of the sugar, the milk and vanilla and on low speed mix until combined.
3.Add two more cups of sugar and on low speed mix until light and fluffy. If you need to, add the remaining two cups of powdered sugar.

Tips: When mixing together the buttercream frosting ingredients, be aware that powdered sugar is very light and will get into the air. You will know this is happening because when you breathe in you will feel and taste a sweetness in your breath. To avoid this, place a clean dish towel over the mixing bowl.

There 'ya go! Buttercream frosting made perfect for your cupcakes.

Buttercream frosting comes in a lot of different flavors, the most common is vanilla, which I have given you the frosting recipe for. It's also often seen in chocolate buttercream and occasionally in other flavors such as almond or peppermint. To get almond or peppermint buttercream frosting, simply replace the vanilla extract with almond or peppermint extract and alter according to your taste.


How to Care for your Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream frosting can be left at room temperature without melting. Do not leave your buttercream frosting in the sun. The best way to store it is in an airtight container. If you want to store your buttercream frosting for a few days, you can put it in an airtight container in the refrigerator and take it out a few hours before you plan to frost your cupcakes so it will defrost and soften up and make the buttercream frosting more spreadable. You can speed up this process by beating it. After you put your buttercream frosting on your cupcakes, the frosting will harden on the outside, so if you are going to decorate the buttercream frosting with sprinkles or other candies, I would advise you to do so immediately after putting it on your cupcakes. Buttercream frosting will form a hard shell in a matter of minutes (sometimes even quicker).

Good luck and come back soon for more frosting recipes and cupcake recipes!

Boiled Frosting

Boiled Frosting

Here is my recipe for boiled frosting. You might be wondering - what is boiled frosting? Well, I'll tell you then. Boiled frosting, aside from being my favorite kind of frosting, is a delicate and subtle delicious frosting, generally with a little vanilla flavoring. Boiled vanilla frosting is most commonly used on red velvet cakes and red velvet cupcakes, though it tastes great on all kinds of cupcakes!

It's called boiled frosting because part of the process of making it calls for you to boil some of the ingredients - hence we get "boiled frosting". It's really delicious and is a great alternative for when you get bored of buttercream frosting, or other really heavy frosting. Boiled frosting wins in my book!

It's easy to make and I'll tell you how to do it:

1 1/2 Cups sugar divided leaving 2 TBSP aside
3/4 Cup of cold water
1 TBSP of corn syrup
2 egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
a splash of vanilla extract

Combine sugar (all but 2 TBSP), water, and corn syrup into a saucepan with a heavy bottom. Stir while cooking over medium heat until your sugar is dissolved. At this point it should look clear. Continue to let it cook until it becomes syrupy. Make sure you don't burn it or your boiled frosting won't turn out so keep an eye on it.
While it's cooking beat your egg whites till the form stiff peeks. Add the remaining sugar and beat. Add syrup while mixing until thoroughly blended. Add vanilla and continue to mix until it begins to form small peaks.

Viola! You have just made yourself some boiled frosting. Let it cool if it's too hot before frosting your cupcakes. Boiled frosting tends to melt if you leave it in the sun (you shouldn't be leaving your cupcakes in the sun anyway) but make sure you don't leave a bowl of boiled frosting in the sun because it will get ruined.

If you don't like boiled frosting, cream cheese frosting is also used on red velvet cupcakes. Use whichever you prefer! I prefer boiled frosting, but I know a lot of people who don't like it as much.

Good luck with your boiled frosting!

Cupcake Recipes

image courtesy of clever cupcakes


For years and years I tried to find the best cupcakes in all the world. Ambitious, yes, but wholly worth my time. I've loved cupcakes since I was a little girl. It came as no surprise to anyone that when I grew up I became a baker - a cupcake baker. Yes, it is true. I work in a cupcake bakery. I won't mention it's name, but it's definitely got a reputation and competes for the title of best cupcakes in New York City. I'm not here to spill the bakeries secrets (okay, maybe a few), I'm here to spill my own cupcake secrets. Over the years I have perfected the art of baking cupcakes. Chocolate, vanilla, red velvet cupcakes. The list goes on. Frostings from butter, chocolate, cream cheese, to boiled vanilla. This is the resource for all you cupcake needs. You won't be left in the dark. Every week I will give you at least one cupcake recipe, maybe more. If you have any requests for any kind of cupcake just go ahead and ask! If you aren't a fan of my cupcake recipes, there are other places that have excellent cupcake recipes. Ivillage has excellent recipes, as does nibbledish. Good luck!

You will find the best cupcake recipes here, coming from someone who has dedicated her life to those mini cakes me all love so much!