Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween is quickly approaching! Chris and I usually go all out with Halloween decorations, but we didn't this year, so I had to make up for it by baking cookies and cupcakes. Here we have some grave stone cupcakes, once again inspired by a recipe in  "The Cupcake Diaries". 

This cupcake is called chocolate goo-nach. It is called that because the middle contains a creepy green goo. I say creepy.. but it is a marshmallow goo filling. 

These cupcakes were truly a lot of fun to make, and I really enjoyed decorating them. I was pretty proud of myself, like I have said before I am a baker not a decorator. I really want to learn more with decorating though and improve my skills. 

The grave stone were originally suppose to stand up in the grass, but I rolled the fondant out too thin so they wouldn't stand up, nonetheless, I made it work, and just laid them down instead. I think the grave stones really turned out great, so I wanted to use them instead of parting with them just because they wouldn't stand up.

To start, use your favorite chocolate cake recipe. Everything I used recipe wise is in the book the cupcake diaries. :)

Creaming my butter and sugar together.

I recently discovered Irish butter, & though they recommend plugra and I like it,

I really love the Irish butter more, it is a European butter as well,

but I feel like it mixes and tastes better.

Adding my egg next.

& then adding my vanilla to my milk.

This brand of vanilla is a bit pricey, but truly amazing & worth it.

After all dry ingredients are mixed, add them to the batter,

alternating between the dry and milk.

And once the batter is nice and smooth

Add the cocoa powder to the mix.

I really believe it is crucial to have a good quality cocoa powder.

If you splurge on anything, make it the butter and cocoa powder.

I use a dutch pressed cocoa powder from Belgium. 

Scoop your batter and bake off the cupcakes.

.

Make sure you cool the cupcakes completely before filling.

Mmmmm they look delicious already. :)

Now time to make the green goo filling!

It is fairly simple, and if you have ever made rice krispy treats before, this will sound very familiar.

You will need mini marshmallows, vanilla extract, butter, and green food coloring.

Start by melting down the butter a bit, not fully though.

To the butter add mini marshmallows

Now, add in the vanilla extract.

Melt this on low and stir constantly so you don't burn it.

Once it is all melted and is smooth..

..Add in your green color. I used Wilton's gel green leaf,

you can add as little or as much as you want,

until you've reached the desired shade,

I wanted mine to look like slime,

remember the Nickelodeon green slime?

I only needed about an 1/8th teaspoon of color to achieve

this shade of green.

Once the goo is made begin uncoring your cupcakes,

I used an apple core, and I saved the bits of cake

to place back in them, however if you don't want to use them

you could throw them away.

Now fill them, by placing the filling in a pastry bag or just,

spooning the filling into the cakes,

that is what I did, it was rather messy, but it's ok

because we are covering the tops of the cupcakes.

When filling these I put a little in each cake, waiting for it to soak in,

and then added more filling until the top of it didn't sink anymore.

This takes a bit of time.

If the goo gets too chilled, it is difficult to work with, if that happens,

just heat it back up, that is why I just spooned it in, and

didn't use a pastry bag.

And now you can place the cored pieces back on top if you want.

After this, now you want to make your chocolate ganache. To do this, combine your cream and chocolate and heat it over a double boiler stirring constantly. 

Once your ganache is made allow it to cool for about 4 minutes, 

while it is cooling place oreos in a blender. The oreo crumbs are going to be your

dirt for the grave stones.

Once the ganache is cooled, dip each cupcake in the ganache, the easiest way,

is to dip straight down, then give it a quick turn and a quick flick of the wrist, it should be 

perfectly coated. 

Dip in the oreo crumbs before the ganache dries.

Now for the decoration, die a small amount of fondant grey 

by using the tiniest amount of black food color.

Once it is evenly colored roll the fondant out,

and freehand with a pairing knife the shape of gravestones.

Then you can write "R.I.P" or anything else you want on them

with black cookie icing.

And then just use from green icing with a grass tip.

You can really be creative with these.

I seriously love how these turned out and I wanted to get these posted before Halloween so if anyone is having a Halloween party and needs treats to make, they can make these. I promise these will impress people, and they are super delicious.

Also, here is what the inside looks like,

I know these are super chocolaty, they are suppose to resemble the ground,

but if they are too chocolaty for you, you could use a yellow or white cake, then dip ice them with a regular icing then dip them in the Oreo crumbs if you wanted, I am sure that would taste great too!

If you make these, I hope you enjoy them! 

:)