Creative Halloween cupcake decorating ideas for festive treats

Hello Bold Bakers! Halloween is a time where you really get to put your skills to the test, both artistic and baking. I'm gonna show you how you can easily decorate cupcakes for your Halloween parties using simple techniques. So let's get baking. So I have a lovely pumpkin cupcake recipe that I want to share with you, so that's gonna be the basis for our cupcakes. So we're gonna start out in a large bowl. Now the main ingredient for our cupcakes is pumpkin puree, but don't worry because I did a Bold Baking Basics video on how to make pumpkin puree at home, it's really easy, all you do is roast pumpkins. Our next ingredient is some flavorless oil, now I'm using vegetable oil, but you can use canola, coconut, sunflower, just don't use olive oil because it tastes too strong. Next we're gonna add in some sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract, and then just whisk all these ingredients together. Look at that gorgeous orange color from the pumpkin. Okay, into this mix we're gonna add in our dry ingredients. Add in your flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. And then gently fold these ingredients in. Don't you just love when you can make a cake without using a machine? You can just do it all in the one bowl by hand. Much easier. Next you want to line a cupcake tin with wrappers. It only takes around 12 because the recipe makes around 10-12 cupcakes. Then go ahead and take a big spoonful of your cupcake batter and then fill each wrapper around 3 quarters of the way up. So if you want to replace the eggs in this recipe then check out my egg substitute chart and that will tell you what to do but I recommend something like applesauce or bananas will work really well. Okay, so we are all scooped and ready for the oven. Bake your cupcakes off at 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees Celsius for roughly 20 minutes or until they're golden brown on top. So I am all about easy decorating when it comes to cakes. Taking a plain old cupcake and transforming it into a show-stopping Halloween cupcake and that's what we're going to do right now. I have these little cupcakes and I'm actually going to take off the wrapper. Because we're not just going to decorate the top, we're going to decorate all over. So we're actually going to turn this cupcake over and put his top as his bottom. So I'm just going to level off with a knife, a little bumpy bit on the top, just so when we turn him over just like that, he sits perfectly. So the frosting that we're using is buttercream frosting, and I have a master recipe for this on my website, BiggerBolderBaking.com, along with the recipes for the cupcakes too. So you want to make some of this, and I colored it orange. I find it easy if you just decorate him from the top to the sides. And then with a spatula, just smear the top and the sides. What we're trying to do is create a round little jack-o'-lantern. And the way that we're creating the lines in the pumpkin is by going down straight down the sides of the buttercream frosting, create those lovely ridges. So you can see he looks like a pumpkin but we're going to make him into a jack-o'-lantern. So here I have some buttercream that I colored with black food dye, I'm just going to draw Draw on his eyes and his mouth. And then lastly, to give you the full effect, I have a little bit of a pretzel here that's going to be the stalk. I'm just going to pop that into the top. And there you have a lovely jack-o'-lantern cupcake. You do not need to be a master cake decorator to be able to recreate these lovely little Halloween cupcakes at home. Okay, I'm going to show you another really easy technique. So I have another little cupcake here with no wrapper on, and I'm just going to put some buttercream frosting on his head, and I'm going to create kind of a little cone. It also makes for really nice eating, does not have to be perfect because we're going So we're going to cover them up. What we're going to cover them up with is some rolled fondant, so I've got a circle here of rolled fondant, it's nice and thin because you don't want to eat too much fondant. Now I have this recipe on my website, it's really easy to make, and you can also make marshmallow fondant, that works really well too. Now I'm just going to place it on top in the middle, just gently move the fondant down the sides, and then just crinkle him a little bit to kind of create that wave that ghosts have. Perfect, look at that, an instant ghost. Now just like my Jack O'Lantern I'm going to take my black buttercream and I'm going to draw on his eyes and his mouth. Who would have thought with a little bit of fondant and some black buttercream you could create this lovely little ghost. I'm gonna set him over to the side and now we're gonna get started on our next cupcake which is a brains cupcake. Cause you can't have Halloween without brains, right? So I have another little cupcake here without his wrapper on, and then I have some buttercream fondant colored with red coloring. And then what I want to do is put a bit on top, and similar to the jack-o'-lantern we're just gonna bring it all over the top and down the sides. We want to give him a nice coating all over. While you're decorating, you know, if you find your buttercream frosting is getting a little bit warm, pop it into the fridge or even into the freezer for two or three minutes and that will help you out a lot. Once your cupcake is covered totally in buttercream frosting, I'm going to take my piping bag, I've got a round nozzle on here, and I'm just going to pipe down the center a line, and then I'm going to do squiggles like this, just like a brain. Perfect brain cupcake. Now just to finish this guy off and make him look really big and bold for Halloween, I've got a little bit of my food dye here and I'm just going to place it around the brains to make it really gory. I'm so proud of how this little guy turned out and all you need is a piping bag and some buttercream, really couldn't be easier. These three cupcakes are so easy to recreate yourselves at home no matter how much of an experienced bold baker you are. And most important of all, they taste great too. Oh, tastes just like the fall. If you haven't done so already, don't forget to subscribe to my channel and tune in every Monday and Thursday for more Bigger Bolder Baking. There is a drink here for everyone.