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Say Boo! Caramel Filled Chocolate Halloween Cupcakes are yummy chocolate cupcakes filled with a frightfully delicious surprise caramel filling. A spooktacular treat.
This post and recipe is part of the week-long event, #HalloweenTreatsWeek where I have posted some great Halloween recipes along with other wonderful bloggers.
Caramel Filled Chocolate Halloween Cupcakes are simple chocolate cupcakes that have a fun surprise in them. They are definitely not a tick but a great Halloween treat!
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Boo! Halloween is less than a week away and we are still scrambling with our costumes.
Well, we have Autumn’s all set as she is going at Minnie Mouse – of course! But Price and I are trying to figure out what to do for us. Get dressed up? Skip it? Do a family theme? Do whatever?
Ultimately, it will be fun as Autumn will love it, so it will be great but right now I’m all over the place.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Halloween but the dressing up part leaves me all panic-y until the last minute. We’ve had years when we have gone all out for parties but the past 3 years have been hard with either being super pregnant, having a wee one, and now a toddler who gets to bed at 6.30. Limits out trick or treating time, plus not many people give out candy by us, which is why we don’t get many, which is why I say to myself, why bother dressing up? I’m just in a quasi sick funk this week and need to shake it off!!
What are you doing? Are you getting dressed up? Skipping it? Handing out candy? Turning the light off?
I recently brought these Monster Cupcakes to Autumn’s daycare for the kids to enjoy. They enjoyed them as a fun afternoon treat to celebrate the upcoming Halloween.
These cupcakes are really easy to make. You can follow my instructions and use a boxed mix and cans of frosting, or you can make it all homemade. It just depends on your preference (and time constraints). You really can’t go wrong with how you decorate them either. It’s fun to be creative. Plus you can def involve kids!
Whip a batch of these frightfully delicious cupcakes for Halloween!!!
Makes 18 cupcakes
Ingredients
Process
These cupcakes are so friggin’ amazing.
When Price and I finished our 2nd Whole30 at the end of April these were our big treat to celebrate completing it. And they were such a great way to celebrate!
As your diet while doing Whole30 is quite limited (amazing, but limited), you really should slowly introduce foods one at a time slowly while going back and forth to the Whole30 diet guidelines to see if things bother you. Since we had already (hap hazardly) done one reintroduction to ‘normal’ foods after our first Whole30 in February we just jumped at our chance to stuff our faces with these cupcakes.
They were everything we had been thinking of those long 30 days.
The bacon.
The chocolate
The peanut butter.
Come, on… shut up!
In fact I made these bad boys on Sunday, froze them, thought about them endlessly, and then inhaled a thawed Cupcake for dessert on Friday. They held up really, really well. Now I am scheming on making more and more cupcakes to freeze so we always have something sweet on hand. I’m thinking I need to get a deep freezer! ha!
I was tempted to make a chocolate frosting but at the last moment I asked Price if he thought a peanut butter frosting would be good and he picked that. I think it was the better choice in the end as well.
I prefer to cut my bacon before cooking it whenever I am using crumbled bacon in a recipe. I just find it easier to work with. Plus, I prefer the bigger pieces of bacon in the cupcake. If you don’t want ‘big’ pieces then feel free to cook the bacon and then chop it up, you’ll get a more crumbly bacon that way.
One thing to note when making them is that the batter is pretty thin, compared to most other cake batters I have made. Do not worry! They come out perfectly.
I mean, what’s better than a chocolatey cupcake studded with bacon topped off with a light and fluffy peanut butter buttercream!?!?
Makes 24 cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes
For the Frosting
Process
Cupcake sourced from All Recipes, frosting by I am a Honey Bee
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Also…
Are you ready for Easter?!?! I am so ready.
I have lots of Easter-y stuff around to make a super, super cute Easter basket for Autumn. I had been hitting up the Target Dollar Spot and the local Dollar Tree to get lots of fun random things to include in her Easter Basket. Which might actutally be a bag, but you get the point. Lots of stickers, some barrettes, crayons, mini board books, and a flipping toy chick. And the ‘big’ toy is a pair of Doc McStuffin’s light up clogs. They are way too big but are super cute. I couldn’t resist because she loves to play dress up at daycare so, so much.
Plus, I picked up a bunch of eggs to dye with her this weekend. I’m sure it will be just one big mess but I think it will be a fun experience.
We painted some plaster eggs over the weekend and that was a great activity. Granted, she tried to crack them at first as we cracks the eggs for me when I make something. But once I explained they aren’t eggs to crack she got the point and got to painting. I’m going to have to keep those half painted eggs forever. So cute!!
Those eggs will last forever, but these Easter Chicks Cupcakes won’t!
These Easter Chicks Cupcakes are really Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes with some Green Vanilla Buttercream Frosting topped off with some green coconut ‘grass’ and Peeps chicks. But Easter Chicks Cupcakes sounds cuter.
I used a chocolate brownie cupcake base as I wanted the cupcake to look like the earth. The green frosting is the glue for the green coconut grass. And then the marshmallow Peep Chick finishes it off.
I used the traditional yellow Peeps Chicks but the Peeps Bunnies are just as cute.
I brought these cupcakes to daycare and the kids loved them.
Makes 24 Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes
For the frosting
For the ‘Grass’
Process
Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes adapted from The Cupcake
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A few weeks ago my friend Jason sent me a link to a red velvet themed charity event for Lovin’ Spoonfuls and he did not have to ask me twice about going. The event was organized by Urbanspoon’s Christine Liu and was sponsored by Signpost Boston and How About We… So on Tuesday night we headed over to Flour Bakery in Fort Port to chow down on some fantastic red velvet themed treats by some of Boston’s great chefs who donated their time and food for this event.
Participating chefs included:
The Chocolate Tarte
Flour Bakery
Hungry Mother
Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake
SoCo Creamery
Sportello
Susu Bakery
Sweet Cupcakes
Union Bar + Grille
Garden in the Cellar
I enjoy a good red velvet treat but I enjoy that my admittance fee went to Lovin’ Spoonfuls.
“Headquartered in Brookline, MA, Lovin’ Spoonfuls is a 501c3, non-profit organization that facilitates the recovery and distribution of perishable and unserved foods that would otherwise be thrown away and wasted. They deliver this food directly to local crisis centers, soup kitchens and other social assistance entities. Lovin’ Spoonfuls was incorporated in 2010, and is committed to do its part to help eradicate hunger in Massachusetts.”
The red velvet desserts varied from cake, cupcakes, donut muffins, and macarons. Then coming out of left field there was a savory item that consisted of chicken coated in red velvet cake batter, fried, and then dressed in a blue cheese sauce. It was a very creative on red velvet. My two favorite items were the macaron from Sportello and the red velvet spoonfuls from Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake.
While there we learned about another very unfortunate situation that requires some special attention. Will Gilson, chef from Garden at the Cellar, reported a tragic situation his mother is experiencing. Jodie Gilson lost all of her greenhouses under the weight of the snow, which means she has lost her lively hood. Why can’t she just go through insurance to fix it… well read about the whole situation and donate to help her get back on her feet HERE.
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I have not been the holiday mood this year. We don’t even have a tree. We just have a simple advent calendar I made but it keeps falling down. Go figure. The only ornaments I have up are at my office on my cube. (I do love looking that them all day- Thanks Erin!)
So I have been a bit Grinchy lately and I decided that I had to get out of this by making something fun. What’s better than cupcakes? Cupcakes topped with snowmen! I’m not a big fan of the cucpakes that are filed high with frosting so I decided to use marshmallows for the snowmen. And I’d use chocolate covered pretzels as twiggy arms. hehe
So began my baking at 5.45am on Wed morning. I prepped the night before but I did not feel like baking then so I just decided to make them in the morning. I made a chocolate cupcake with an eggnog frosting. The chocolate was the frozen ground, frosting was the fresh snow where the happy snowmen sat.
These little guys were well received in my office. We were totally maxed out on sweets with a lot of furniture vendors giving us brownies, cookies, candy, cake, and pie, but some people made room for them or brought them home to their kids.
Snowmen Cupcakes
recipe makes 24 cupcakesChocolate Cupcake
1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa power 3/4 cup of coffee 1/2 cup of cold milk 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups of flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 /2 teaspoon salt 2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1 1/2 cups of sugar 3 large eggs 6 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, melted.Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 12-cup cupcake pans with liners.
Combine the first 4 ingredients together in a small bowl, set side.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt together, set aside.
Using a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add the eggs to the butter/sugar mixture one at a time. Beat in the melted chocolate, mix thoroughly.
Add in the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the liquid ingredients.
Mix all until thoroughly combined. Divide the batter evenly into the 24 cupcake liners.
Bake 16-20 minutes, or until a toothpick is cleanly removed.
Once the cupcakes have cooled frost them and decorate.
Eggnog Frosting
2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1/4 cup eggnog approximately 1 1/2 pounds of confectioners sugarWith a mixer, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract and continue to beat it.
Add in 1/2 the eggnog and then add in small batches of confectioners sugar. As the frosting begins to combine, add in the rest of the eggnog and then add enough sugar to reach the desired consistency.
Snowmen
12 10″ skewers, cut in half 72 marshmallows (2 packages) Black and Orange- foodoodlers, gel icing, or markers 24 chocolate covered pretzels (1 package of Flipz is enough)Using a scissor, cut all dowels in half to get 24 “spines” for the snowmen.
Put 3 marshmallows on each skewer. Do not pierce the end of the top marshmallow since it is the head.
Draw face on top marshmallow.
Cut 2 pretzel arms from each pretzel. Using a paring knife or scissor, cut 2 deep slits on each side of the middle marshmallow. Insert each arm into knife slit, marshmallow will “self heel” around pretzel arm.
Insert 1 snowman into each cupcake.
**If you don’t have edible food markers (aka foodoodlers), or forget your stuff at home like me, just use a marker and warn people about the top marshmallow.**
From the first time I flipped open my October 2010 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray, I knew I would be making the apple cupcakes in there. I love fall because of apples. Apple pie, apple donuts, apple cider, candied apples, caramel apples, apple and cheddar omlets… the list goes on. so when I saw apple cupcake I knew I would be trying these out.
The cupcakes sounded great as they were described in the magazine, but I decided to give them my own twist. I had spent the day prior to making the cupcakes canning various things, including apple butter. I loved spending the day in the kitchen, esp surrounded by the sweet smells of fruit cooking down into jam and butter. Our whole place smelled like an intense apple pie for the whole day while the apple butter was cooking down. Once it was complete I canned some and left some for us to use immediately. And by use immediately, I mean eat right out of a bowl. Since one can only do that for so long I decided that I would need to eat it on toast for some ‘real’ substance and add into some recipes. Which resulted in the development of the apple butter buttercream frosting.
The cupcakes are really easy to make. I loved it since I did not need to make the mixer dirty for that. Just use 1 whisk for the cupcakes and you are all set. The recipe called for peeling the apples, but I did not think that was necessary, so I just grated them as is, and ended up with great results. Laziness can pay off.
I wanted my cupcakes to stay really moist so I slightly under baked my cupcakes by a minute or so. I tested the cupcakes with a toothpick and it came out pretty clean so I stopped it at that point. (You will note the toothpick in one of the cupcakes… Price was marking his because he felt that one looked the best. I couldn’t help but laugh at him.)
I typically store cupcakes in the refrigerator or in a cool place because of the milk in the buttercream. However, this frosting does not have milk in it so you don’t have to rush them into the big chill. That is one thing I really like about this frosting since I really dislike harden butter cream frosting. That being said, don’t leave them by your warm stove or you will have a frosting disaster on your hands.
Ingredients
Cupcake
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