Halloween Cupcakes!

If your little kiddies weren’t afraid of spiders before, they will be now. This is a great cheesecake recipe that doesn’t involve a whole lot except to help you work on your icing details!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

Filling Ingredients:

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Topping Ingredients:

2 cups sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Melted chocolate, piping icing in various colors, spider candies

Instructions:

Combine the smashed up wafer crumbs and butter or margerine. Press the mixture into the bottom of the sides of your greased spring form pan to create your cheesecake crust.

In a big mixing bowl beat cream cheese and sugar until it is nice and smooth. Add in the eggs and beat at low speed. Whisk in the pumpkin, cornstarch, vanilla, and the ultimate holiday spice-pumpkin pie spice (aka your secret ingredient!).

Pour mixture into crust and bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour. Cool for at least 10 minutes before doing anything else to the cheesecake, but don’t turn off the oven just yet. Mix up the topping ingredients’ and spread this over top of the filling. Place back in the oven for 6 minutes to melt. Run a  knife around the edge of the pan first to loosen everything to make release easier later on. Allow the cake to cool at room temp and refrigerate over night.

In the morning go ahead and remove the spring form sides and ice on on the spider web decorations and place a candy spider in each little web (try to space them so that each slice has a spider.) You can even slice before decorating if you want to make them all even.

We’re not just about Halloween cupcakes! Here’s another great holiday recipe to serve your family BEFORE the cupcakes. It’s easy, and it tastes great. Got garlic cloves?

Ingredients:

10 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
Several pinches of hot red pepper flakes
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or as desired
1 pound spaghetti
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 head of broccoli, broken into bite-size florets
Freshly grated Parmesan, or other grating cheese

Instructions:

Boil water and add noodles to cook as usual, except about half way through cooking add the broccoli and let the noodles and broccoli finish cooking at the same time. Drain, but reserve about half the cooking water for later. Warm approximately half of the garlic with the pepper flakes in the olive oil over medium heat (turn on the vent and open the kitchen window or you’ll be crying in your spaghetti!) Toss the pasta and broccoli with the garlic/chile oil and add the remaining garlic to the mix and continue to toss to coat. Add a few spoonfuls of that reserved water and keep tossing, add more water as needed. Kind of have to eyeball it until it’s well coated and tossed to your liking. Serve up and sprinkle with grated cheese. There will be no fear of vampires bothering you after this dinner!

Wow, if these don’t look yummo! If you’re looking to do a little icing work on your cupcakes for this halloween, don’t skimp out on this recipe! Reprinted from kopiaste.org

Halloween - Cupcakes

My twist to the recipe

When the mixture was ready I added a few spoonfuls in the prepared muffin tins and I kept some of the mixture in which I added a few spoonfuls of cocoa and mixed with the spatula. Then I added another spoonful of the dark mixture on top of the white mixture.

Chocolate topping

1 couverture chocolate, melted in bain marie. I then added 1 teaspoon butter and 2 tablespoons fresh cream and mixed until they melted.

Cream cheese decoration

• 100 grams cream cheese
• 50 ml Whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

An interesting twist on an old idea! Follow this recipe for a spider influenced theme for your next batch of halloween cupcakes

The “cobwebs” cloaking the cupcake tops are easier to make than they look — just pipe a thin spiral of melted chocolate and then drag the tip of a sharp knife lightly from center to edge. 

Ingredients:

For the Cupcakes:

4 cups all-purpose flour 
2 teaspoons baking soda 
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
1 teaspoon ground ginger 
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
2 cups packed light-brown sugar 
1 cup butter (2 sticks), at room temperature 
4 eggs 
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (not pie filling) 
1-1/2 cups chopped pecans (6 ounces)

For the Frosting:

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature 
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, at room temperature 
2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed 
1/2 teaspoon orange extract 
1 box (1 pound) confectioners’ sugar

For the Decorations:

Candy sprinkles in seasonal colors 
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips for cobwebs

Instructions:

Prepare cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line cups in 2 standard 12-muffin pans with paper liners.

Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt into a medium-size bowl.

With a mixer on medium speed, beat together sugar and butter in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin — mixture may took a little curdled.

On low speed, beat flour mixture into pumpkin mixture just until blended. Stir in pecans by hand. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups.

Bake in heated oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

Prepare frosting:

On medium speed, beat together cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in orange juice concentrate and orange extract. On low speed, gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth and well blended.

Spread top of each cupcake with about 2 tablespoons frosting. Scatter sprinkles on tops of 12 cupcakes, mixing colors as desired. Reserve remaining 12 cupcakes for “cobweb” decoration.

Prepare cobwebs:

Melt chocolate chips in top of a double boiler over barely simmering, not boiling, water, stirring until smooth. Spoon into a small plastic food-storage bag. Snip off a very small corner. Starting in center and ending at edge, pipe chocolate in a spiral on top of each cupcake. To create a cobweb pattern, lightly drag tip of a paring knife or wooden pick through spiral from center to edge; repeat 7 or 8 times, in wheel-spoke fashion.

Yield: Makes 24 cupcakes