There are two key things to remember at Halloween in my kitchen:
1. There is an abundance of pumpkin entrails (come on it’s halloween I had to get that word in somewhere!)
2. Anything goes – although I prefer to stay with the idea of cute rather than too gross to eat!
Now the first feedback I received when I said I was going to use the mountainous pile of pumpkin to create a sweet pumpkin cupcake was not exactly encouraging. It was more like the way you shout at the TV ‘don’t do that!’ as the girl in a horror film has made the lame decision to go down the stairs into the basement having heard something that is probably going to result in her sudden and untimely gruesome death…
I decided to work on the idea of similar ingredients to that of a carrot cake, using lots of warming cinnamon and allspice combined with chopped walnuts and a little white chocolate to add a more distinct sweetness.
The cupcakes were then finished with a simple vanilla buttercream so not to distract from all the flavours in the sponge (although I do think they would be delicious with a Cream Cheese Frosting!). This was coloured bright orange – obviously a typical halloween festivity colour but also very autumnal as are pumpkins!
Then my favourite part…Oreo Spiders! I placed a variety of Oreo cookies on to the cupcakes (Regular & Snack Size) and then used sugarpaste in white and black to create little eyes and of course as reminded by a close friend the 8 legs that makes a spider a spider rather than an insect (see I do listen!)
The Spiders were super cute and a little Sesame Street-esque but at the same time had that Halloween theme that I was aiming for. I have to give a big shout out to the amazing pumpkin carvings done too! (mine was the cat!) See for yourselves…
And…most importantly for all the doubters out there…the cakes were wickedly good (sorry I couldn’t resist one last Halloween word play!)
Happy Halloween everyone x
RosyCheeks Bakery 