Recipe: Ghoulish Marbled Halloween Cupcakes

 

I love baking for Halloween, it allows me to be a bit more adventurous, so many ghouls and monsters that can easily be incorporated into bakes but sometimes its also nice to strip it back and keep it simple. And that’s what I’m sharing with you today. A simple cupcake recipe with a surprise centre all topped off with a graveyard grey buttercream that has just the hint of glitter in it. 

Ingredients 

For The Cupcakes

- 150g Stork

- 150g Caster Sugar

- 150g Self Raising Flour

- 2 Tsps Vanilla Extract

- 3 Eggs

- Orange Food Colouring

- Green Food Colouring

For The Buttercream

- 200g Butter, softened 

- 320g Icing Sugar

- 2 Tsps Vanilla Extract

- Black Food Colouring

- Jam, flavour of your choice

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole cupcake tin with paper cases. 
2. Into a bowl place your caster sugar and stork. Cream together either by hand, electric mixer or stand mixer until it’s pale and fluffy in colour. 
3. Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until well combined and then repeat with your remaining eggs. 
4. Fold in your flour and vanilla extract, taking time to slowly fold it through and keep all the air you’ve just beat into the mixture. 
5. Now comes the fun part. Divide your mixture between two bowls. Into one bowl add your orange food colouring and mix until you’ve reached your desired colour. I used quite a lot of orange colouring as I wanted it to be quite bright. 
6. In your second bowl add your green food colouring and again mix until you reach your desired colour. I had to mix two different greens for this recipe as the lighter green on it’s own had too much of a yellow undertone that the darker green turned slime coloured when added. 
7. To marble the two together just alternate spooning the mixture into the waiting paper cases and pop in the oven for 20-22 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed. You could take a toothpick and marble them together before cooking but they automatically and organically do it when they bake so I always like to leave it to the oven to create my pattern. 
8. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 
9. Now its time to make your buttercream. Pop your softened butter into a clean bowl and beat until soft and pale in colour. I highly advise using a hand mixer or a stand mixer for this part as doing this by hand can be a killer. 
10. Sift in half of your icing sugar and beat until fully incorporated. I tend to start off by folding my icing sugar in so it doesn’t fly out of the bowl and you’re don’t get that dreaded icing sugar cloud. 
11. Sift in the remaining half of your icing sugar and vanilla extract and beat again. Take this time to really scrape the edges and the bottom of the bowl so there aren’t pockets of icing sugar left unmixed in your buttercream. 
12. This is where it gets difficult. Adding food colouring to buttercream isn’t difficult but trying to create that perfect midnight black is. I used the Sugarflair Midnight Black food colouring to start with and it’s what’s given it that lovely metallic sheen but you may need to combine two shades of black to get there or even somewhere close. I also used the Dr Oetker Black Gel Food Colouring to achieve this colour which wasn’t what I was going for but still turned out well in the end. 
13. Once you’ve gotten your desired colour, set your now prepared buttercream to one side. It’s time to add your secret centre. Take your now cooled cupcakes and using a knife or a corer cut out the centre. You could keep them to place on top once you’ve filled them or you could eat them as I did. 
14. Take your jam and spoon a small amount into the middle of your cupcake. Using the back of your spoon gently press down so that your filling lies flat against the top of your cupcake. 
15. Fit a piping bag with a nozzle of your choice and then fill it with your buttercream. Pipe your desired design onto your cupcakes. Don’t worry about your buttercream mixing with your jam, it’s all going to smush together when you bite it anyways.
16. Then all that’s left is to enjoy. I love the metallic sheen these have and when you bit into them you get that delicious sweet vanilla alongside the sharp, tart taste of the jam. Trust me whoever you bake these for is going to love them.