Cute Halloween Bat Cupcakes

I know I said I would post about my Rebels Party next, but today is Halloween. And if I don’t share this with you now, I would have to wait a whole year to post this! I have a little cousin, J (wait, can I call her “Little J” from now on? A la Gossip girl??), who asks me to make cupcakes for her classroom parties every year. Last year I made these cauldron cupcakes, but it wasn’t an original idea of mine. This year I was bent on doing something unique, and of course every time I thought something was new, Google told me I was wrong. After a solid week of thinking about spiders, cats, ghosts, graveyards, pumpkins, candy corn, witches and other Halloween themed items, I came up with these really cute bat cupcakes.
Start by tinting vanilla frosting to a blue that is similar to the night sky and add some edible gold stars. The bats are made with Oreo truffles which are one of the easiest desserts you can make. You basically mix Oreos and cream cheese and you get these tasty nuggets of goodness. Plus, I used cookie dough Oreos which made them that much more awesome. Stick on some candy eyes, chocolate wings and chocolate covered candy pearls and you’ve got a bat. The moon in the background is made with yellow candy melts sprinkled with sanding sugar to make it glitter. By the way, I hurried my butt to get a few shots of these before the sun went down and that’s the reason I’m lacking more photo content. I love me some fall, but I do not love the short days… no siree.

Halloween Bat Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c. all-purpose flour
2 c. sugar
¼ c. natural unsweetened cocoa powder
½ c. Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1. tsp. kosher salt
½ c. vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. strong, hot coffee

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 muffin pans with cupcake liners (24 cups in total).
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, both cocoa powders, baking soda, baking powder and salt until fully combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract until combined.
4. With the mixer speed on low, add the egg mixture to the flour mixture until combined.
5. Turn off the mixer. With a spatula, scrape the sides of the bowl to fully incorporate the two mixtures.
6. Turn the mixer on low and slowly add the hot coffee to the batter. Once added, raise the speed to medium until completely homogenous.
7. Fill cupcake liners with 2/3 full with batter and bake about 15-20 minutes. Checking at 13 minutes for doneness with a toothpick.
8. Let stand for 5-10 minutes when done, then put onto a cooling rack to fully cool.

Night Sky Frosting

Ingredients:

2 c. whole milk
½ c. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 1b. (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
royal blue gel food color
violet gel food color

Instructions:

1. In a saucier pan, put milk, salt and flour and whisk until combined on medium heat.
2. Continuously whisk mixture until thickened to a pudding like consistency.
3. Once thickened, strain through a mesh strainer into a bowl with a spatula to remove lumps.
4. Place a piece of plastic wrap on top of the flour mixture and put into the fridge until fully cool.
5. In a mixer bowl fitted with the whisk attachment, mix the sugar and butter on high speed until fluffy and pale about, 5-10 minutes.
6. Add the chilled flour mixture and continue to whip on high speed until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is no longer gritty, about 5-10 minutes.
7. Add the vanilla extract and mix until combined.
8. Add blue and violet gel colors until desired color is reached.

Yellow Moons

Ingredients:

yellow candy melts
yellow sanding sugar

Instructions:

1. Melt yellow candy melts and pour into a squeeze bottle.
2. On a sheet pan lined with wax paper, draw and fill in 1 inch wide circles with the squeeze bottle.
3. Sprinkle yellow sanding sugar while candy melt is still melted.
4. Let set until use.

Oreo Truffle Bats

Ingredients:

36 Oreos
8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
black candy melts
black candy pearls
small candy eyeballs

Instructions:

1. Put Oreos in a food processor and pulse until fine crumbs form.
2. Add softened cream cheese and vanilla extract, and pulse until blended.
3. Shape into 40 small balls onto a wax paper lined sheet pan and chill until firm.*
4. Melt the black chocolate candy melt in a tall and narrow bowl or cup and dip chilled truffles using a fork. Let excess drip back into the bowl/cup.
5. Let the chocolate on the truffle set until firm.
6. Pour melted chocolate candy melt into a squeeze bottle.
7. On a separate sheet pan lined with wax paper, draw wings with squeeze bottle. Set aside.
8. While the wings set, use the black candy melt to adhere candy eyeballs onto the chocolate truffle.
9. Take a black candy pearl, dip it into melted black candy melt and adhere onto top of the bat’s head. Let set.

Assembly

You will need:

chocolate cupcakes, baked and cooled
night sky frosting
yellow moons
truffle bats
edible gold star glitter
large open star decorating tip

Instructions:

1. In a pastry bag fitted with a large open star decorating tip, fill with night sky frosting and frost a tall swirl on a chocolate cupcake.
2. Sprinkle edible gold star glitter all around the sides.
3. Add a yellow moon towards the back of the cupcake and place a truffle bat (without its wings) onto the center of the cupcake.
4. Take two wings and position it next to the truffle bat.
5. Enjoy!

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*If mixture is too soft to shape into balls, spoon 40 small separate mounds on a wax paper lined sheet pan and chill.  Once chilled, you should be able to form them into balls.

Chocolate cake recipe adapted from Ina Garten.
Oreo truffle recipe adapted from Kraft.