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.

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