Recipe: Mini Spiderweb Bites With Marshmallow Buttercream

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend. Today I'm back with another Halloween themed bake that will work perfectly for any parties or nights in you may have planned over the spooky season. They may be small in size but they're packed with a mixture of melt in the mouth white and milk chocolate chips topped off with a marshmallow buttercream which will give anyone a sweet tooth.

Ingredients 
For The Cakes 
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 100g Stork/Margarine
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 25g Cocoa Powder
- 50g Milk Chocolate Chips
- 50g White Chocolate Chips

For The Buttercream
- 170g Unsalted Butter, softened
- 256g Icing Sugar
- 3 Tsp Double Cream
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Jar Of Fluff
- Rice Paper Spiderweb Decorations

Method 
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2- Into a bowl place your caster sugar and stork. Using either a stand mixer or silicone spatula/wooden spoon, cream together until pale in colour and smooth in texture.
3- Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until fully combined.
4- Repeat with the second egg and another tablespoon of flour. Beat again until combined, taking time to scrape any mixture off the sides of the bowl.
5- Fold in the rest of your flour alongside the cocoa powder. Folding in the flour helps to keep any air you've already built into the mixture. I find it helps to create a lighter, tastier cake.
6- Fold in your chocolate chips and then spoon into the paper cases.
7- Bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Usually I bake this kind of recipe for longer but as they are smaller in size they take less time to bake. You also don't want to overbake them as the cocoa in the mixture will dry them out and make them heavy and dry when you eat them.
8- Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
9- Now it's time for the icing. I've used this recipe before and I honestly don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to use it as my frosting for this recipe. Sure it's delicious but the Fluff gets absolutely everywhere no matter how careful you are with it.
10- Place the softened unsalted butter into a bowl and beat until it's soft, light and creamy. A stand mixer or an electric hand mixer is perfect for this as it can take a while.
11- Once you've got the right consistency, sift your icing sugar into the bowl and beat until smooth. I made sure to scrape around the sides of the bowl as I did this so no lumps were left sat on the side.
12- When all of your icing sugar has been added and the mixture is smooth, add your teaspoon of vanilla extract and the three teaspoons of double cream. Beat again until the mixture is smooth and everything is fully incorporated.
13- Now comes the fun part. Spoon the entire jar of Fluff into the buttercream mix and beat until fully incorporated. Do not get this stuff over your clothes, it will dry instantly and be a right cow to get rid of.
14- Once you're happy with your buttercream, spoon into a piping bag and gently pipe it onto the top of your mini morsels. I found I needed a really steady hand for this and that I did over ice quite a few of them as I thought I was icing a bigger cupcake.
15- When you've iced all of your mini morsels, pop the rice paper cobwebs in at an angle and leave them to set. These may take a little longer to set as the Fluff makes the buttercream quite sticky but they will set in the end.
16- Then all that's left is to enjoy them. I'm sure if you make them for any spooky related gatherings, they'll go down a treat. I know mine did.

Recipe: Easy Peasy Sugar Skull Cupcakes

Spooky Season is upon us! Yes it's finally October which means Halloween one of my favourite times of the year is drawing near. Which means not only do I get to decorate my room all spooky and cute but I get to bake as many Halloween bakes as I like and nobody can stop me.

Today we're starting with the simple, perfect for starter bakers cupcake recipe. I picked up these Sugar Skull decorations up from The Range in the Summer and have kept them safely tucked away until now. From the beginning of brainstorming what I wanted to do with these, I knew I wanted to do matching icings for each of the designs. However I originally planned to just make them all one flavour until I was sat pulling out the relevant colours and flavourings. And then I found myself picking out four different flavourings that work wonderfully with the simple but delicious vanilla sponge that sits underneath them. You don't have to do four different colours or flavourings but I love to play with colour and flavour when I'm baking so these seemed like the perfect excuse to let my creative side out a little more.

Ingredients
For The Cupcakes
- 100g Stork/Margarine
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

For The Buttercream
- 200g Butter, softened
- 320g Icing Sugar
- Two Teaspoons Of Your Chosen Flavouring/ Flavourings
- Purple, Green, Pink And Yellow Gel or Paste Food Colouring
- A Pack Of Sugar Skull Decorations

Method
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2- Into a bowl place your stock and caster sugar. Using a spatula, wooden spoon or stand mixer cream together until it's pale in colour and fluffy in texture.
3- Add one egg followed by a tablespoon of flour. Beat until combined.
4- Repeat with the other egg and another tablespoon of flour. Beat until well combined, scraping the edges of the bowl so nothing is left sitting on the sides.
5- Fold in the rest of your flour and the two teaspoons of vanilla extract. Take care when folding in your flour as you don't want to knock the air you've just built up out the mixture.
6- Spoon into your paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
7- Now it's time for the buttercream. Place your softened butter into a bowl and beat until smooth and soft in texture. I highly recommend using a hand mixer or stand mixer for this bit as it does have a tendency to take a while.
8- Once your butter is the right consistency, add half of your icing sugar and mix again. If you're using a hand or stand mixer be sure to start slow and build up the speed otherwise you'll be covered in icing sugar.
9- When you see buttercream starting to form, add the other half of your icing sugar and beat until fully combined. I always take time to scrape around the sides of the bowl so nothing is left sitting on the sides. And if your buttercream seems a little stiff, mix in a splash of milk and you'll have the perfect piping consistency.
10-  Now comes the fun part. As evenly as possible, split the buttercream between four separate bowls. Into each one add your different flavouring/colour combination you've chosen. I chose to flavour the pink cupcakes raspberry ripple, the purple vanilla custard, the yellow were lemon and the green were strawberry. But you can easily flavour them however you like or you can leave it as plain vanilla buttercream.
11- Once you've created your colourful masterpieces, spoon each buttercream into separate piping bags and ice your now cooled cakes. I used a variety of piping nozzles but my favourite is the Wilton 2D Flower nozzle. You'll notice that two of the colours have the same style piping as I just happen to have two of those nozzles.
12- Once you're happy with your piping, gently place a sugar skull decoration on top and leave to set.
13- Then all that's left to do once you've tackled that mountain of washing up this recipe has created is to enjoy them. These are perfect to make with the kids, for the kids or as an easy yet fun recipe if you're an amateur baker.

Recipe: Easy Halloween Cupcakes

When I was planning out what Halloween bakes I wanted to feature a surprise center spiderweb cupcake. I had a picture of them in my head and baked them a good four times. The cupcakes themself turned out brilliantly and even the surprise center worked out well. It was just the decoration. I couldn't get the buttercream to work, it was splodgy and hard to work with. And even when I managed to get the buttercream to work, the spiderweb design was an absolute disaster so I gave up on that and turned my hands to an easy and quick cupcake recipe that you could whip up in 20 minutes and still have time for a cuppa.

These cupcakes are very simple but they're great for a quick sugar fix and are even better as a recipe to make with the kids. For the decorations I went with Nightmare Before Christmas themed rice paper wafers, because it's my favourite film ever and didn't cost the earth. I got these off of Amazon and there were plenty of other Halloween designs to choose from if Nightmare Before Christmas isn't your thing.

Ingredients
- 110g Butter/Stork (softened)
- 110g Caster Sugar
- 110g Plain Flour
- 2 Tsp Baking Powder
- 2 Medium Eggs (beaten)
- 3 Tsp Cocoa Powder
- 2 Tsp Orange Extract
- 1 Sachet of Dr Oetker Ready To Use Easy Chocolate Icing
- Rice Paper Wafer Decorations

Method

1. Pre heat your oven to 180C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases. I used Halloween themed ones from Lakeland.
2. Place the softened butter and sugar into a bowl. Using a stand mixer, hand mixer or silicone spatula, beat together until pale and fluffy. I used a silicone spatula as that's all I had to hand and would recommend a spatula over a wooden spoon as it gives a better results and requires less work. 
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the bowl. 
4. Beat the eggs if you haven't beat them already and add to the mixture. 
5. Add your flavouring of choice. I went for orange but you could try something else such as coconut, salted caramel or coffee. 
6. Beat together until the mix is well combined, making sure to scrape the edges of the bowl. It's another reason I prefer using a spatula to beat everything together. You can just swipe it along the sides of the bowl and it combines everything together seamlessly. 
7. Once mixed, spoon into your cases and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on them, especially towards the end as you don't want the cakes to dry out, a problem I've found when using cocoa powder in my recipes. 
8. Once cooked, leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
9. For the icing I used a sachet of Dr Oetker Ready To Use Icing. You could easily do buttercream to ice these but I was feeling lazy so chose this sachet instead. Following the instructions on the back of the sachet, I placed a dollop of icing in the middle of each cupcake. I tried spreading this to cover the entire top but it wasn't the best at spreading, so I kept it to the middle so the rice paper wafers would have something to stick to.
10. Once you're happy with your icing/buttercream decorate with your rice paper wafers or halloween themed decorations of choice. Leave to set, then enjoy.

Recipe: Halloween Themed Surprise Loaf

Today's post is yet another Halloween recipe. Ever since I started baking again in the Summer I've been thinking of what Halloween bakes I could make. Sure I'd seen a ton of recipes on Pinterest and other baking blogs but none of them appealed to me. Then I found a picture on google as I googled Halloween bakes that caught my eye. It was off a 'Surprise Loaf'. I couldn't find the exact recipe to match the picture so attempted to make it with a simple victoria sponge recipe. It didn't work, the cakes were both flat and there was no way it would have worked. So I changed the self raising flour to plain flour and added baking powder. From there, it worked like a dream and whilst it didn't exactly turn out like I wanted it to, I'm still happy with how it turned out.

Ingredients
- 250g Margarine (Not Stork)
- 250g Caster Sugar
- 5 Eggs
- 25g Cocoa Powder
- 2 Tsp Baking Powder
- 3-4 Tsp Orange Extract
- 2 Tsp Orange Food Colouring
- 225g Plain Flour

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 7 inch square tin and a 2lb loaf tin with parchment/baking paper.
2. To make the inner cake you'll need to put 100g margarine, 100g caster sugar and 2 eggs into a bowl. Over top of that you'll need to sieve 100g plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder. Mix together all the ingredients with either a stand mixer, hand mixer or a silicone spatula. I'd also advise softening the butter for 10 seconds in the microwave so it's easy to beat into the mixture. 
3. Once that's well blended add in your 3 teaspoons of orange extract and mix until well combined. Then add in your 2 teaspoons of orange food colouring and mix until well combined. You can add more depending on how bright you want it to be or you could even choose a different colour completely. 
4. Spoon the mixture into the square tin and smooth over with a spatula or pallet knife so the top is smooth. Then bake for 25 minutes or until it's lightly risen and firm to touch. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Whilst you wait for that cake to cool, in a clean mixing bowl place the remaining margarine, eggs, caster sugar, plain flour and baking powder. Add the cocoa powder and mix until well combined, adding more cocoa powder if you think it's necessary. Once you have your mixture, place to one side. 
6. Place your now cooled cake on a board and with a cutter of your choice (I went with a bat) cut out a minimum of six shapes. You may have to cut them out diagonally across the cake to get enough to fit inside the loaf tin. Also make sure your cutter of choice fits both width and height wise inside your loaf tin. 
7. Now they're cut out, spoon a third of your chocolate cake mix into your loaf tin. Smooth over with a pallet knife or spatula so everything's even. Arrange your shapes upright down the length of your tin. They should fit snugly together and cover the mixture at the base. 
8. Carefully spoon the rest of the mixture on top, smoothing gently over with a pallet knife as not to disrupt cake shapes. Once everything is covered, shake the tin gently from side to side so everything is smooth and settled inside the tin. 
9. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until lightly risen and firm to touch. Because this cake contains cocoa powder, keep an eye on it towards the end as cocoa powder can tend to dry a cake out if cooked for too long. 
10. Once it's cooked, leave to cook in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 
11. Once cooled, slice and enjoy the hidden surprise. 

As you can see my inner cake did get squashed ever so slightly by the weight of the loaf so I could have done with using a bit more mixture on the bottom of the loaf. However baking like everything takes practice and patience. I'd probably also use a different shape cutter if I made this again before Halloween just to see how well it worked within the loaf. You could even make this for other occasions including Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day and Birthdays. It's all about the surprise inside.