Squad Ghouls

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Alright, it’s mid-October, I’ve watched all my favorite silly Halloween movies six times, it’s 50 out, gray, and rainy, and I am pretty sure I’ve died and gone to spooky heaven. The only thing that could make the day any more perfect is a cupcake, so it’s good thing I’ve got a creepy dozen (not to be confused with a baker’s dozen) waiting for me in the fridge. If you’re not spending a Sunday on the couch with the Sanderson Sisters and a chocolate cupcake, you’re just not Octobering properly. Allow me to guide you to achieving peak eeriness with these chocolate cupcakes adorned with ghoulish fiends and dead roses.

These ghosts, cats, and roses are a chocolate cupcake base with my leftover caramel cream cheese frosting from my spiderweb cupcakes on top. While the frosting does give me deja boo, this chocolate cupcake mix is insanely good–it’s more a Devil’s Food cake flavor than a standard chocolate cake, which is both taste and holiday appropriate. A caramel frosting and a rich chocolate cupcake base makes for a match made in flavor heaven (or hell depending on how your diet’s going…because you’re not gonna be able to eat just one). Each cupcake is 225 calories, and the recipe makes 12 total. I mean, you can definitely share, but I’m more into treats (for myself) than tricks.

To make, you’ll need:

• 1 bag of Empowrd gluten free chocolate cupcake mix
• 115 grams (1/2 c) unsweetened applesauce
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake wrappers. These do make smaller cupcakes, so realistically, I’d say it would make 8-10 normal-sized cupcakes if you want fuller cakes.

Mix all the ingredients together in a stand mixer on medium-high for two minutes. Use a small cookie scoop to evenly distribute batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out of the center of a cupcake mostly clean. Let these rest in the pan for 10 minutes before placing on a cooling rack to completely cool before frosting.

While your cupcakes cool, you can make the ghosts and cats. You just need white and black candy melts (I get mine on Amazon, Wilton brand). I traced a cat and ghost template I made on Canva onto Parchment paper with a Sharpie, then flipped it over. If you have cookie cutters to trace or can draw a cat or ghost freehand with no issues, these are also other options. I can’t even draw a stick figure that looks human-adjacent, so I like to size a silhouette down in Canva and print it out.

I melted about 1/4 of a package of white candy melts following package directions and placed in a piping bag. I snipped the edge off the bag and outlined my ghost. Then I filled him in quickly and used a toothpick to swirl the chocolate around while it was still melty to smooth out. It doesn’t need to be perfect, you just don’t want any gaps. While these set, I melted 1/4 of a package of black candy melts following package directions and placed into another piping bag. Once you can touch the ghosts without feeling any tackiness (a.k.a. ethereal ooze), they are safe to gently flip over and add eyes and a mouth.

Snip a very small corner off your bag, then draw a small circle for the mouth and two eyes using the black melts. Then you have a Casper-level of friendly ghost who’s ready to adorn the top of a cupcake even though he knows you’re going to eat him (like I said, he’s a really ghoul guy; he gets it. It’s a haunt or be haunted kind of world).

You do want to work quickly, so don’t admire those boo-tiful ghosts for too long or your chocolate melts will, well, no longer be melted. Work quickly to pipe the outline of a cat, then fill in and use a toothpick to swirl out any gaps.

I must have piped that poor kitty on top of a stray strand of white chocolate from my ghosts. He’s haunted, for sure. Now, let these set before adding black edible glitter to them with a food-safe paint brush. If you don’t have edible black glitter yet, you’re not really living Baketober in all its glory. Do I have a shelf reserved for edible glitter and Halloween sprinkles in my pantry? Does a ghost lurk in the woods? Do werewolves howl at the moon?

I had a whole bunch of leftover frosting, so this is what I used to pipe all my cupcakes with. I also bought all my Spooky Sprinkles^TM and edible glitter from Amazon. I dumped a bunch of one sprinkle mix into a small bowl and a bunch of the other sprinkle mix into another bowl. Then I used a large round tip to pipe a mound of frosting on top of half of my cupcakes. Once done with this, I swirled the top of a cupcake face down in a bowl of sprinkles until it was completely coated, then gently slid a ghost on top. I repeated this process, varying which bowl of sprinkles I used. You can catch a video tutorial of this and how to paint the roses on my Instagram as well.

To make the roses, fill another piping bag with frosting and a 2D or 1M tip. Start in the middle of the cupcake and pipe a small mound; now, draw a circle around this mound, continuing around the cupcake until you reach the edge. I’m a lefty, so I find it easiest to start in the middle and pipe around counterclockwise. Now, you will need to let these freeze for about 30 minutes so you can paint them, so pop them into the freezer while you mix your paint.

I used silver and gold luster dust, but you can use just about any color, and it will pop on the black roses. I took 1/4 tsp of clear vanilla extract and mixed a teaspoon of gold luster dust in a small bowl; I used the same ratio in another bowl for the silver. You can also use 1/4 tsp of vodka, but we somehow don’t have an ounce of vodka in our house. Probably because I don’t bake with it, and my husband is a whisky guy. The flavor of either the extract or the vodka will evaporate as the paint dries, so don’t worry about your roses tasty like a distillery.

Take a chilled cupcake and a small food-safe paintbrush dipped into your paint. Take small, simple strokes around the edges of the petals to paint. It is a little time consuming, but it was fun to paint in all the little nooks and crannies. Once painted, place in the fridge to allow the paint to set.

I am 100% buying a smaller paint brush to try painting flowers again very soon. I still love how these turned out, but I wanted a thinner line. Altogether though, they’re creepy and they’re cooky, mysterious and spooky…they’re all together ooky, my cupcake family. The cats and ghosts are truly so simple to make, so definitely use these tips to make your own batch to inspire shock and eww at your next Halloween get together. I highly recommend trying that Empowerd cupcake mix because it so, SO chocolatey. It’s rich, the cocoa flavor is off the charts, and anything that holds together caramel cream cheese frosting with spooky accoutrements is a winner in my book. ‘Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Recipe and Instructions