Spooky Spider Cupcakes/Muffins for a Howling Halloween!

"I JUST love these little spider cakes, when I make them, their faces make me laugh - well, I am easily pleased! Furthermore, they are VERY tasty - they have a much better flavour than NORMAL spiders I find, their legs are a little too chewy! The cake mixture is a double chocolate cake mixture - with cocoa and chocolate pieces, topped off with a chocolate butter cream. The decorations are made using Liquorice Allsorts and liquorice strings/laces or Catherine wheels as we call them in Great Britain. They are easy to make and can be frozen before you decorate them. I made these for TOTM Cooking School September 2008 - I hope you find the step-by-step photos handy when you come to bake and decorate them. An idea we had for an adult Halloween party - turn the spiders upside down so they have their legs in the air, and scatter wine corks amongst them on a plate........only joking! :-) If you fancy some wise companions for these spooky spiders, try these: Recipe #326716."
 
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photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
photo by French Tart
photo by AthenaML photo by AthenaML
photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
Ready In:
1hr 5mins
Ingredients:
16
Yields:
12 cupcakes
Serves:
12
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ingredients

  • Spider Cakes

  • 200 g butter, softened and room temperature
  • 200 g golden caster sugar
  • 200 g self raising flour
  • 1 12 ounces cocoa, NOT drinking chocolate
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 12 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 -4 tablespoons milk
  • 4 ounces chocolate chips, drops or 4 ounces chopped chocolate
  • paper cupcake liners, cases preferably brown (optional)
  • Butter cream Icing

  • 100 g softened butter
  • 100 g icing sugar
  • 1 ounce cocoa
  • 12 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 -2 tablespoon milk
  • Decoration

  • liquorice allsorts, sweets (Liquorice Catherine wheels, shoe strings, boot laces etc for the legs.) or candy, for the eyes and the mouth (Liquorice Catherine wheels, shoe strings, boot laces etc for the legs.)
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directions

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180C/360°F.
  • This is a VERY easy all in one mix; simply put the softened butter into a large mixing bowl with the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, beaten eggs and vanilla extract. Mix on slow with a hand mixer, incorporating all the dry ingredients gradually into the butter and eggs. Increase the speed to medium and then to high. Stop and add the milk, tablespoon-by-tablespoon, whisking in between each spoon until you have a smooth, silky mixture with no lumps. Add the chocolate chips or chocolate pieces and mix well.
  • Spoon the mixture into well-greased muffin tins, or tins lined with muffin cases - I do not use cases as a rule!
  • Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until well risen - check with a wooden cocktail stick by pushing it in the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean, the cakes are ready.
  • Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then gently run a knife around the sides to release the cakes - or take the cakes out if they are in muffin cases. Put them on a wire rack and allow to cool completely before decorating.
  • Whilst the cakes are cooling, make the butter cream icing. Put the softened butter and icing sugar into a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly by hand with a fork. Add the vanilla extract and mix again before adding the cocoa powder - mix all the ingredients together and then add the milk if you need to loosen the mixture for spreading. The butter cream icing should be soft and silky - but should still hold its shape.
  • When you are ready to decorate the spider cakes, cut the liquorice Catherine wheels into "legs" that just dangle over the edge of the cake - mine were about 2" in length. Take the liquorice allsorts sweets/candy that have a white inside and a liquorice exterior - see photos - gently make a hole in the centre with a cocktail stick and push in a small sliver of liquorice to make the eyes. Choose a red or orange liquorice allsorts sweet/candy, which is layered - see photo - and cut each sweet/candy into 4 pieces for the mouth.
  • Gently push the legs into the top of the cake at intervals - the icing will go over the top to keep them in place later, so do not worry how they look! You need 8 legs per spider - of course! Spoon on some chocolate butter cream icing to cover the legs and come within 1/2" of the edge - make it look "hairy" by stippling with a fork. Then place two eyes in the top, finishing off with a mouth! Continue to decorate all the cakes in this way, place them all on a plate with some extra sweets/candy scattered around them, and watch the looks of delight on the children's faces when they see them!

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Reviews

  1. The kids made your other recipe for the "Hoot" owls and we decided to make these also. The kids really liked these too, and we had lots of giggles going on when they had to choose which one they were going to choose. The most fun was decorating them all different. The kids had so much fun!
     
  2. Made these as a trial run for Halloween. Kids really liked them.
     
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<p><strong><span>The sunflowers in the field behind my house in SW France:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Sunflowers src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/DSCN8221.jpg alt=Sunflowers width=640 height=480 /><br /><strong><span><br /><br />I am British (English-Scottish), but I was born in South Africa and have lived all over the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, Cyprus, USA &amp; Singapore. I have also been very fortunate to have travelled extensively over the years.........I still have wanderlust! <br /><br />I used to be an English Literature &amp; Art History teacher &amp; lecturer; before that, I trained and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years. I now live in France with my husband &amp; my daughter who has just started university in September 2006. We also have one very chatty Burmese cat Willow, who allows us to live with her here! (I used to have three cats, I recently lost Monty, a beautiful seal point Siamese and before that, Rama, who was a debonair blue point Siamese cat - I would love to have another Siamese cat or cats in the future!)</span></strong></p> <p><em><strong><span>This is my Burmese Cat, Willow, sunning herself on the log pile in the kitchen garden:</span></strong></em></p> <p><strong><img title=My src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/ABaconButtyandSundryFoodPhotos34.jpg alt=My width=640 height=480 /></strong></p> <p><strong><span>Here is my lovely Monty, a seal point Siamese, and Willow, sitting&nbsp;in the kitchen garden last year, and a few months before Monty died; he was 18yrs old:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Monty src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/AbsolutelySinfulStickyToffeePudding.jpg alt=Monty width=640 height=480 />My</p> <p><strong><span>This is my wonderful old boy, Rama, a blue-point Siamese, who died when he was 20yrs old - excuse the old and much sellotaped photo:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Rama src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/Rama1stOctober2004164.jpg alt=Rama width=517 height=639 /></p> <p><strong><span>My favourite pastimes are: reading, writing, painting &amp; drawing, photography, gardening, anything creative, walking, travelling, dining out and of course COOKING! I love all types of cuisine, but especially Traditional British - and NO it is NOT all bad!! I particularly love food associated with the changing seasons plus traditional feasts &amp; festivals, as well as Slow Cooking. I also enjoy French &amp; North African cuisine, come to think of it, there isn't much I don't like! <br /><br />My husband &amp; I run a Chambres D'Hotes, (Bed and Breakfast) called Auberge de la Fontaine here in beautiful South West France; we specialise in Gourmet Food &amp; Wine Breaks, French Antiques &amp; Restoration courses, French Language courses and French Cookery classes. Our home is completely furnished with Antique French furniture that we have rescued &amp; restored ourselves. Our charming village has one of the oldest Churches in the region &amp; it is famous for its connection with the St.Jacques de Compostella Pilgrimage route, as well as being within the Cognac &amp; Bordeaux wine growing area. <br /><br />We have a wonderful garden where we grow ALL of our own herbs and most of our fruit and vegetables. I specialise in rare, unusual and old-fashioned herbs, which I grow in our walled garden. As well as growing herbs, I also grow many different varieties of lavender, old-fashioned shrub roses and heirloom fruit and vegetables. <br /><br />We have lived overseas for many, many years now - but we both still love going home to Northern England, near Scarborough &amp; York, to visit our family &amp; friends. 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