I want my Mummy! No, really. I love these cupcakes designed by Dixie Belle Cupcake Cafe.

Be sure to post your Halloween cupcake pictures on our Facebook site.

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Ahh, it is here at last, whatever will we bake next after all the flurry of creating so many different spooky cupcakes!  I thought I would finish off with a few more Halloween ideas and tomorrow I promise to put Halloween behind me for another year!

These two cupcakes were designed by JessDessert’s and are just brilliant.  The first is this awesome witches hat, which I love because it is purple rather than black.  The cupcake is a cookies and creme cupcake with cookies and creme frosting.

The second, is her pumpkin cupcake, which is actually a hot cocoa cake with marshmallow frosting.  They both look fab!

Happy Halloween everyone!

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Okay yesterday I was tempted to do 5 of the best Candy Corn cupcakes, but really couldn’t find much that differed. It seems most people do a packet mix with coloring or use their own vanilla mix with coloring.

In addition many of the cupcakes only featured candy corn decoration, rather than a cupcake that looked like candy corn.

I did though find one that I loved, these candy corn cupcakes from Our Best Bites shows how colorful and fun they can be.  Best of all there is a simple recipe on her site along with instructions on how to perfectly pipe the frosting.

Another idea for making your cupcake look more like candy corn is to put the orange food colored batter into the cupcake mix first, then do the yellow.  When cooked, peel off your wrapper and turn the cupcake upside down.  If you have a large domed top, you may need to slice this off.  Then frost the bottom of the cupcake in white frosting.  This will give your cupcake a similar shape to your candy corn.

Remember candy corn cupcakes can be a fun option for a non spooky halloween cupcake.

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I still love the concept of Iron Cupcake, it is a great way for bakers to get out of the kitchen and meet up with other great bakers, but better than that, as a result of these gatherings new and exciting flavors are discovered.

Recently Milwaukee held it’s Halloween inspired BOOzy cupcake theme and they had a great showing! There were a number of winners including these divine looking cupcakes submitted by Stick To Your Ribs Catering. They are Black Russian Cherry Bombs which feature a black Russian cupcake with Cherry Vodka buttercream filling and a Kahlua buttercream frosting! I would love to have the recipe!!

For all the great cupcakes of the day, check out the Iron Cupcake Milwaukee blog.

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Are you ready to experiment on your Halloween cupcakes? Wilton was kind enough to send a box of Creepy Sprinkles Lab test tubes for my wonderful readers to use at home. These kits are fun and my kids loved mixing the orange, green and black sprinkles all over their cupcakes. The test tubes are so cool, that I’m sure kids will think of a way to use them long after Halloween.

Would you like to make your own cupcake lab at home? 3 lucky winners will be chosen at random to receive a set of 4 Wilton Creepy Sprinkles lab kits. Just leave a comment below and tell us what you or your children are going to be for Halloween.

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I was so excited to get a package from Wilton and had the desire to start baking pumpkin Halloween cupcakes. Well, I held off because this huge cupcake Halloween package is not for myself. One lucky person who leaves a comment below will win this entire box of cupcake treats from Wilton. This giveaway includes so many fun cupcake items that I will have to list them out. Did I forget to mention that you also are going to get a new cupcake pan?

-Wilton Excelle Elite 6 cup muffin pan
-Haunted Manor cupcake stand
-Cupcake treat boxes
-Creepy Sprinkles Lab kit (features cool test tubes with candy bones, orange, black, and green sprinkles)
-Silver metallic sprinkles
-Smiling pumpkin icing decorations
-White Skull icing decorations
-75 Halloween baking cups

What do you think? Just leave a comment below and tell me who will be enjoying your Halloween cupcakes. One lucky winner will be chose at random and announced on Wednesday 10/20. Good luck!

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There is lots happening in cupcake world this week!  There is a whole heap of buzz coming from the undead as the Halloween Cupcakes start coming thick and fast, along with cupcake temptation on The Biggest Loser and then there is the whole debate about gender foods, are cupcakes really feminine?

Monday 13th October – Creepy Cupcakes, Zily Rosen’s book “Zombie Cupcakes” is released in the UK.  See our feature article last week!

Tuesday 14th October - Which is the best packet cupcake mix?  Well North Jersey tested Sprinkles, Barefoot Contessa and Duncan Hines in a bid to determine which cupcake mix reigned supreme.  The results are surprising, with the cheapest, Duncan Hines at $1.29 coming in first.  See all the comments about the bake off at North Jersey’s website.

Tuesday 14th October – The Biggest Loser Season 10, Week 4 featured a temptation many of us would struggle with, a shelf full of wonderful cupcakes.  And the temptation was pretty hard to refuse, the winning cupcake would provide that contestant with a 1 pound advantage which could be used at the weigh in, or held till another weigh in.  If held the advantage would accumulate, up to 8 pounds in the final week.  Of the contestants three participated and the others decided to sit out.  Adam was the winner and now carries the advantage.

Wednesday 15th October - If you haven’t got enough Halloween ideas yet, then why not check these out!  The Stir blog has another three great designs including a vampire, little brown owls pictured here and more variations on the pumpkin cupcake!

Wednesday 15th October - What games are you playing on Facebook?  It is an interesting question and one that keeps changing.  Inside Social Games reports the latest stats which shows the top three games this week as Crime City, BRAAAINS and Cupcake Corner which has had a 28% jump in popularity.

Saturday 17th October – Are men really from meat eating mars and women from cupcake cavorting venus?  The question of what we eat, how it is marketed and portrayed is addressed in an article in the UK’s Guardian.

Sunday 18th October - Johnny Cupcakes has embraced Halloween with the release of his new very limited Halloween t-shirts reports the Vine.  These are just being released this week so if you are interested in owning a bit of Johnny Cupcake Halloween history you will need to get in quick.  You can get these from the Johnny Cupcakes online store.

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This week the Buffalo News did a feature article for the Invasion of the ‘Zombie Cupcakes’ gut it was the photo of Zily Rosen that really drew me in!

What a fantastic expression!  So I read the article and it seems that Rosen is a master of the zombie cupcake in all forms, so much so that she has released her own book with lots of instruction and advice on creating your own cupcakes.  Unfortunately the book isn’t slated for American release until April next year, so it is one to keep an eye out for when Halloween rolls around again in 12 months time.

But in the mean time she gives away a sneak peak of the book in the form of the zombie pumpkin cupcake (not the one pictured above).  The article contains the full recipe and instructions on how to make the frosting and the royal icing to create your design!  Check it out here.

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Fantastic pumpkin cupcake created by CovetThyCupcake

If you are looking this Fall to make a batch of pumpkin cupcakes, then look no further!

Step 1 – Choose your pumpkin cupcake recipe

If you have an age old favorite then just skip this step, if not, we have at least five pumpkin flavored cupcake ideas for you on our post in early September - Five Pumpkin Packed Cupcakes

Each of these cupcakes is shown with an image and a link back to the blog, which contains a full recipe to create the cupcakes. So have a look and select the one that most suits your pumpkin requirements.

Step 2 – Go Shopping

What you will need to buy is, all the ingredients for your cupcakes (of course), then you will also need the decoration.  To make these cupcakes you will require orange food dye, or if you cannot get that, get yellow and red (do you feel like you are in school art class?), sugar (optional) and finally something to make your stalk with.  Now the options are varied, if you are going with a cream cheese frosting, then pretzels work really well, if you have a normal butter and sugar frosting then you can go all out with licorice and if you are wanting to cover with a ganache (make sure you go white chocolate otherwise your pumpkins will be brown!), then why not go a flake chocolate bar.  Whatever your choice for frosting their will be something to work with the flavor.

Step 3. Make the cupcakes

Follow the directions supplied and make your batch of cupcakes.  Allow them to fully cool then whip up your chosen frosting.  When it is fully mixed add the orange coloring.  If you have only red and yellow coloring, add a little red and a little yellow and then adjust to get the desired color.  Remember you want to get a real intense orange color so you will need a reasonable amount of color.

When it is all mixed through and even (no color variation), spread the frosting onto your cupcakes nice and smoothly.

Step 4. Decorating

Option 1 – If you are going to coat your cupcakes in sugar to get the look shown here by CovetThyCupcake then you will need to take your sugar and place at least half a cup in a zip lock bag. Add your food coloring and then zip lock the bag and mash with your fingers to get the color to spread and take to all the sugar.  Add more color if it is not intense enough then when you are complete, pour the sugar into a small bowl.

Lift your covered cupcake by its base and roll it around in the orange sugar until it is completely coated.  This should be quite easy as your frosting should be still tacky.

Option 2 – Skip the sugar step and just show your frosted cupcakes as they are.  If you are going this way you may need to allow your frosting to set for an hour or so before adding your lines.  This really depends on how runny your icing was.

Step 5 – Finish your Cupcakes

Hold your cupcake in one hand and using the back of a knife or a skewer, place the tip on the centre of the cupcake and then roll the knife or skewer down to the cupcake wrapper.  This should create an indent.  You want to be firm and even but be careful about applying too much pressure.  Create about five pumpkin lines, then finish off your pumpkin with your chosen stem.  CovetThyCupcake has used a pretzel to create hers!

For more Halloween ideas, check out our spooky 25 Halloween ideas and for Fall ideas, click here!

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This week is a mixed bag of news and cupcake commentary, including some cupcake anger in the words of one very popular TV host!  Who?  Well read on to find out!

Brain Slug Cupcakes from River Front Times Blog

Friday 8th October - According to the River Front Times they have the best 12 ideas for Halloween cupcakes!  So if you haven’t found the perfect cupcakes in our list of 25, check out their list for extra ideas!  There are some pretty cool cupcakes in their midst!

Friday 8th October - Red Velvet Events are giving away “thousands” of cupcakes this coming week to celebrate their 8th anniversary.  The cupcakes will be given out on the 15th at yet to be announced locations reports Austin Business Journal.

Friday 8th October – You may recall we have twice in News of the Week featured Keanu Reeves looking sad and forlorn with a cupcake.  Well it appears that the image resonated with thousands of readers, who have now created fan art.  That is according to Hollywood Crush who recently caught up with the star and have asked him about the sad Keanu cupcakes.  You can see the video here.  It would however seem they are right, a quick search of the internet revealed a sad Keanu lego creation, a cutout Keanu that you can stick on your computer and  this really cool rip off image!  You can see more sad Keanu’s on Ben Is Awesome.

David Letterman and Rachel Ray

Saturday 9th October – David Letterman takes the axe to Cupcake Wars and other cupcake shows.  Poor Rachael Ray tries to defend herself (not that she is responsible for these shows) and promotes the nutrition in schools.  But this would seem not so much an interview but a tirade by David Letterman against the shows.  Watch the video at Eater.com

Heidi and Lou Sulola. Photo by Katie B / Eagle Press.

Saturday 9th October – Heidi Klum and Seal’s little girl Lou Sulola had her first birthday on Saturday, and her brand new experience was, “to eat her first Sprinkles cupcake” says Heidi.  In addition she was having balloons and a low key birthday with family reports the Celebrity Baby Blog.

Sunday 10th October – It appears the news regarding the bakery ‘Just Cookies’ in Indianapolis is still surging ahead reports Fox 59.  This is the small business that refused to fill an order of rainbow cupcakes for a student to celebrate ‘National Coming Out Day’.  It now appears that a protest is set to be held today at 11am.  The Mayor is also looking into the matter.

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