Halloween.....n....n.. Creepy cupcakes

It’s been a while since my last post and I’ve been trying to shed my weekend baking something could possibly be a new hit. It was end of October and you all know it’s about tricks-or-treats. I'd been thinking what was a good bake on halloween week. I bought a box of deep-fried bamboo worms from ChiangMai in case I could use them in my goofy creepy Halloween treats. Having looked at those tiny poor things, gee…they looked so real (and they are real worms) that some people , including me, may have had goose bumps all over. I'd then better keep them for my afternoon creepy snack.

There are several haunting-cake ideas from websites; most of them require craftsmanship at certain level. Initially, I wanted to garnish my cupcakes with colorful gummy worms but couldn’t find any of those in super-mar-ka-ret. After a few thoughts , I relied on my convenient-loving habit, I came up with this one.

Before heading back home, I stopped by my landlady’s to pay the rent. She gave me a big box of Sugas (fruit cadies). Mmm…m…these little colorful gummies bring back memories. These are my favorites when I was young. (Please do not attempt to envision younger-me in black-white photos, I’m not that old). Anyway, poring them in a halloween's bowl and giving away to co-workers would be such a dull idea. Don’t you think? So, here we go.

Microwave candies under medium heat for a few seconds and have fun! My landlady got to be proud of me making the most out of her gift.

Muffin recipe is adapted from Elise’s Blueberry Muffin. Below is half batch of Elise’s, make 12 muffins. I copied her recipe / method here as it has detailed description. Thank you Elise!

Muffin
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour (replace 1/2 C of white flour with cocoa if you want to make chocolate muffin)

1/2 Tbsp baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt
5 Tbsp unsalted butter (about ½ stick plus 1 table spoon or 4 oz), softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

3/4 cup plain yogurt

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1 Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2 Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
3 In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add egg , beat until incorporated. Beat in the grated lemon peel.
4 Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.
5 Use a standard 12-muffin muffin pan. Spray each muffin cup lightly with oil. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups. I equally filled each cup up to 50 g. They filled half way through.

Bake muffins about 25 to 30 minutes. I rotated muffin as it passed 15 minutes. Test with a toothpick to make sure the center of the muffins are done. They puffed up to the top of cup exactly what I wanted as I’ll put butter crème on. Those who want domes, you may try 75 g in each cup. Set on wire rack to cool down completely before garnished with peanut butter frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1 cup Icing' sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

5 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup yoghurt

Place everything in the bowl , mix with electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-low speed until creamy until the mixture is light and smooth. Put butter crème in plastic bag, cut small tips. Then another fun part, no need to be neat. The goal is to make this frosting like creeping worms. Squeeze it on cold muffins.

Here comes the assembly. I really had fun doing this. I wanted to make sugary lizards, worms, bats and etc but too bad it required a bit of craftmanship.