Halloween Spider Cupcakes

These are the last Halloween inspired treat for 2012, aren’t they cute?! In a creepy crawly kinda way… I think they would look great on a party table next to our Witches Hats, Meringue Bones and Sausage Mummies. You could always whip up one batch of cupcakes and decorate half as these spiders and the other half like Mel’s amazing Brain Cupcakes!

To make these creepy treats you will need:
Cupcakes
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoons cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup flour
1 egg
¼ cup milk
75g butter (melted)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
¼ cup boiling water

Basic chocolate icing
1 cup Chelsea rich chocolate icing sugar (you could use icing sugar and cocoa)
1 teaspoon softened butter
2 tablespoons boiling water

To decorate
chocolate hail for the body
24 m&m’s for eyes
licorice for the legs (straps work best but you can cut any licorice from the assortment box to work)

Method:
Pre- heat your oven to 180°C and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases.
Place all the cupcake ingredients in a bowl EXCEPT the water. Add water last - do not mix until it is added.
Beat well with a hand held mixer for about 2 minutes and once combined and smooth spoon evenly into your cupcake cases.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until you can remove a skewer cleanly from the centre of your cupcakes or they spring back when lightly touched.
Make your chocolate icing and using a knife apply liberally to each cupcake using a pallet knife (a butter knife if you don’t have a pallet knife will suffice).
Sprinkle chocolate hail over the ‘body’ of your spider and put matching m&m’s on the front for eyes.
Use a skewer to make three small holes in the sides (I know spiders have 8 legs but it looked a little crowded so I went for 6) of each cupcake to put your licorice straps in as legs.

Lunchbox Bakes - Halloween Sausage Mummies

These are super easy to make and make a delicious treat for the lunch box or as a snack.

12 precooked sausages (I used Smoked Cheese Kranskys)
2 sheets puff pastry
1 teaspoon mustard

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.  Cut the pastry into thin strips, about 5mm thick.  Wrap strips of the pastry around the sausages like a bandage (brush the strip with some ice cold water if it is not sticking very well).  If the strip is not long enough for the sausage, start using another piece.  Place on the prepared baking tray.
Bake 15 – 20 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden.  Use the mustard to dot eyes onto the sausages before serving.

For more lunchbox baking ideas check out our Lunchbox Bakes page.

Chocolate Witches Hats

I had a go at making Witches Hats as a Halloween treat.  They are pretty simple to make and the recipe will give you 15 little hats.  I used midnight cookies as a base (I’ve put the original recipe below which will make a few more cookies than you need) which worked perfectly as a delicious accompaniment to the cone of the hat.  Inside my hats I hid some candy corn lollies (found at Martha’s Backyard), but you can include whatever candy is your favourite. 
We took the finished Witches Hats around to share with Simon’s family and his nieces were pretty excited when they found the hidden lollies!

To make Chocolate Witches Hats you will need:
a batch of midnight cookies (see recipe below, or alternatively, you could try your fave store bought biscuits)
15 kid sized ice cream cones
375g milk or dark chocolate, melted
Bag of Pebbles of Mini M&M’s, to decorate
½ cup of your favourite candy, to hide inside the hats

Midnight Cookies:
125g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
125g flour
35g cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line several baking trays with baking paper.
Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.  Sift in the flour, cocoa and baking soda and beat until well mixed.
With dampened hands, roll teaspoon sized pieces of the dough into smooth balls.  Place on the baking sheets, spaced well apart.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10 – 12 minutes, or until set.  Leave to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

To make the Witches Hats:
Roll the cones in a bowl of the melted chocolate to coat the outsides.  Stand on a wire rack to allow the chocolate to set.  Dip your Pebbles of Mini M&M’s into the remaining melted chocolate and adhere to the chocolate cones.
In the centre of each cookie, place the candy you want to hide inside the hat. 
Dip the rim of an ice cream cone in the melted chocolate and put it onto one of the cookies, repeat the process.
As a finishing touch you could tie a thin ribbon around the ‘brim’ of each hat.

Halloween Meringue Bones

These are super easy to whip up for a Halloween treat, although only half my batch really resembled bones as I piped some too thick and they puffed up a bit too much. Next time I might print out some type of template and lay it under wax paper to help keep them uniform.

Ingredients:
3 egg whites (size 6)
¾ cup of caster sugar

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180˚C and line two baking trays with baking paper.
Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry, add half the sugar and beat well, add remaining sugar a tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition.
Drop oven temp to 120˚C and pipe in the shape of bones (or ghosts) onto an oven tray lined with baking paper.
Bake for 20 minutes or until meringues are dry but not brown. Leave in the oven until it is cool before removing.
*Tip – do not open oven door while cooking!

Meringues like Pavlova can be different in texture each time you make them due to things like the weather and the humidity so can take a little bit of practice. If you love meringues but can’t make them or enough of them you could always get in touch with our newest sponsor Fab Meringues!

This will be my last post for the next week(ish), we are moving back to Auckland this Friday which means an end to the last nine weeks of solo parenting while Shane has been away working (yay!). I am so excited to be living as a family again and to be living close to Mel and my new house has a far bigger and newer kitchen than the one I have had here in New Plymouth!

Salted Caramel Sauce

Doesn’t it look tempting?! A big jar of gooey goodness and the uses for this jar of amber deliciousness is endless! Keep you eyes peeled over the next few days for a post about salted caramel cupcakes which involves using it to make buttercream frosting. You can drizzle it over ice cream, brownies or biscuits or then again you could try dunking apples in it – perfect for Halloween (check out this post from Pioneer Woman for inspiration)!

Ingredients:1 cup white sugar
30 grams butter, chopped into cubes
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup of cream (room temperature)
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

Method:
Place the sugar in the bottom of a medium-large saucepan and head over a medium-high heat, whisking it until it begins to melt. Don’t worry when it starts to form clumps, these will dissolve.
Once all the sugar has melted and you are left with a clear liquid you can stop whisking and start swirling the pan occasionally while the sugar cooks.
When the sugar has reached a deep amber colour (a reddish brown) it is ready, the best way to be sure of the readiness is to use a a candy or instant read thermometer, your caramel will be 175°C when it is ready. Caramel can go from perfection to burnt in a matter of seconds so it is important that you keep an eye on things. It is at this point you can add the butter and whisk to combine it with the sugar. It will bubble up but keep whisking.
Remove your pan from the heat and pour in the cream, again it will bubble up but you need to keep whisking to ensure it is incorporated and you end up with a nice smooth sauce.
Sprinkle over your flaky sea salt and stir.
Set aside to cool for at least 15 minutes and place in a jar. Cool completely to room temperature before storing in the fridge. It will keep for about two weeks.

Brain Cupcakes

Hello, it’s Melissa here from Baking Makes Things Better.  I made these creepy looking brain cupcakes using Courtenay’s Kiddy Cupcakes recipe (I’ve copied the recipe below for ease).  They are quick and easy to make, and perfect for Halloween.  I injected the cupcakes with jam in the middle to look like blood.  The result is a cupcake that is super sweet and delicious, something you’d probably want to run towards rather than away from!

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
½ cup cornflour
4 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 cup strawberry jam

Buttercream:
250g butter softened
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Red food colouring

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line your baking tin with cupcake cases.
Cream the butter in sugar until light and fluffy, add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
Alternate adding the flour mix and milk & vanilla essence to the creamed mixture, beat on a low setting to combine.
Spoon the mixture evenly into cupcake cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer can be removed cleanly or they bounce back to the touch.
Leave cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Once the cupcakes are cool, inject jam into the centre of each cupcake.

To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. Add the colouring to your mix and beat it in.
Fit a piping bag with a circular tip.  Draw a line with the icing across the middle of the top of a cupcake, then pipe a line around the perimeter of the cupcake from one side of the half way line to the other.  Repeat this process on the other side of the cupcake.  Fill each half with squiggles of icing, small zig zags from the centre to the outside of the cupcake look best.

Halloween Inspiration 2012

October is upon us already! Scary how fast the year is going… At the end of the month is Halloween, Mel and I have a whole heap of spooky new treats lined up to share with you over the next month that will be just perfect for trick or treaters or a themed party. If you can’t wait for them are are planning your party right now, maybe you could check out last years Halloween inspiration post or consider some of these options previously featured on BMTB.

Midnight cookies, they look and taste sinfully good and the name has a Halloween feel to it!

Ghost cupcakes! They are so easy to make and are sure to look boo-tiful on any dessert table.

The orange cupcakes Mel posted the other day are the perfect colour for Halloween…

You could easily make them more festive by using toppers like these on my cupcakes from 2010…

Make sure you check out The Pretty Baker’s website, they are one of our fab sponsors! They have a great buy two get one free deal on Halloween sprinkles, awesome skull and cross bone doilies to complete the look for your dessert buffet or to make your own bunting out of and this too cute witches broom cookie cutter that I may just have to purchase!

Keep an eye on the blog throughout October for plenty more Halloween inspiration – think brains, fingers, bones and creepy crawlies! Mel has our first themed post coming your way tomorrow.

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

I just whipped these up quickly as I know I promised you something last week but I have been incredibly busy with a trip down to New Plymouth and a teething baby, so they are nothing exciting but they are cute! It is a basic chocolate cupcake made using this recipe with a purple buttercream icing and a little meringue ghost topper. To make the ghosts I whipped up a meringue mixture popped it in a piping bag and piped my ghosts on to wax baking paper before baking them like normal meringues.

Inspiration: Halloween Treats

Halloween is coming up in 10 days – a good excuse to bake up some sweet treats. Halloween has only started to be recognised in New Zealand over more recent years (there is something a little weird about about sending your kids out to ask strangers for candy), will you be celebrating it this year?

I just loved some of the images google spat out for me when I was looking for inspiration so had to share some of my favorites, the Nightmare Before Christmas cake is amazing, the flooded cookies make me think about trying to master that skill again and I recognised the cake pops straight away as Bakerella’s work, you can find out more about them here. I have actually made some little spider cupcakes before you can check them out here and last years Halloween baking can be found here.

I am really liking the little meringue ghosts and am tempted to give that a go but we will see. Be sure to check back after Halloween to see what I whipped up and if you want to share your creations why don’t you get in touch through our facebook page.

Halloween Cupcakes

Since it’s Halloween this weekend I broke out the goodies Karyn bought me back from America and made some cupcakes using a devilishly good Betty Crocker ‘Devil’s Cake Mix’. Thank you for the treats Karyn – hope you enjoyed your cupcake!