Halloween Cupcakes for the Freaky Friday Disco

Tomorrow is Harry's Freaky Friday Halloween Disco at school. It's really a great big fundraiser but it's also a chance for the school (well those who managed to get tickets!), to get together and have a good time. We don't really have a big Halloween culture in NZ but it has slowly started to creep in over the last ten years or so even though most people aren't all that keen on it. Most schools seem to try to acknowledge it by having a disco so the kids can still say they have done something for Halloween, (and they can raise money at the same time), and that way it keeps them off the streets on the actual night....well that's the theory!

Anyway we were asked if we could take some baking and although I work shifts and am often unavailable to help out with these sorts of things, the one thing I can do is bake! I only finished my set of nightshifts this morning so these were done on zero sleep. I really did enjoy doing them and while I would have liked to have gone all out even more, I have to acknowledge that this was better than nothing and in fact they turned out really well. Sometimes I aim for the stars when I have had no sleep but when it comes to the crunch find that I have run out of steam, so I had to keep it pretty simple. Having said that I still made around 34 cupcakes to take for them to sell so it did take up quite a lot of time.

Here are some photos:

Waiting to be put away for tomorrow

With a plain coloured vanilla buttercream and Halloween sprinkles

Mummy cupcakes (chocolate buttercream underneath and fondant strips for the bandages) 

The 'now-I'm-too-tired-for piping cupcakes' with a chocolate buttercream icing and sprinkles

Harry's self decorated cupcake

The recipe I used for these was my favourite one from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. The cupcake is amazing- really light and totally delicious.I'm sure it's the method of creaming and creaming each initial step along the way that gives them this lovely texture. The recipe says it makes 24 but I got 42 standard sized cupcakes out of this mixture. Most of the time I halve the recipe and still get a good 20 out of the mix. This is really well worth trying so here it is:

Dinosaur Rock Cupcakes (from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook)

3 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (I never use this as I use salted butter)
3 Tbsp instant coffee
1 c cocoa
1 c hot water
1 c cold water
200 gms butter
2 1/2 c caster sugar
4 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla

Oven to 170 C. Line cupcake tins.

Sift together flour, soda and baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coffee, cocoa and hot water until you have a paste. Add the cold water and mix til smooth and combined.

Cream butter until it's really well creamed. Add in caster sugar 1/3 at a time and beat well (at least 2 mins) after each addition. Make sure the mix is light and fluffy as this is the secret I think. Add in eggs one at a time and beat at least a min after each. Add vanilla and beat until well combined.

Add a 1/4 of the flour mix and mix on low speed, then add 1/3 of the cocoa mix until all ingredients have been used. Don't over beat but make sure it's well combined.

Bake 18-20 mins and remove form the tins immediately they are out of the oven.