Spooktacular Cupcakes!

I love Halloween. It is my favorite holiday of the entire year. Everyone gets to dress up, go to parties, and show off their creativity! Have you ever noticed that everyone always seems to be in a good mood on Halloween?

Every year, one of my coworkers has a fantastic Halloween party - it should prove to be a great time! Many of you may also be attending or hosting your own parties: at home, in the office, at a bar/restaurant/club...so you may be trying to come up with a creative treat to bring along. Here is a recipe that I came up with for some easy-to-make Spooktacular Jack-O-Lantern cupcakes! I highly recommend using your own from-scratch vanilla cupcake & vanilla frosting recipes as those tend to be the best. When I was making these, I bought Pillsbury low sugar cake mix and Betty Crocker whipped icing - I was more concerned with having time to get creative with my decorating!

Special spooktacular surprise: these cupcakes have a miniature Reese's Peanut butter Cup on the inside! A great surprise for all of your ghoulish friends!

Hope you enjoy these!

Spooktacular Jack-O-Lantern Cupcakes

1 box Pillsbury Lower Sugar Yellow Cake Mix

1 jug Betty Crocker Whipped Vanilla/White Frosting

Yellow, Green & Red Food Coloring

White Gel Icing (I used Betty Crocker)

24 miniature Reese's Peanut butter Cups

24 cupcake wrappers (I like orange bc they go with the cupcakes!)

Mix the cake mix as directed (you'll need eggs, water & oil). Add red and yellow food coloring until you get a pumpkin colored orange color. Even though your cake mix is yellow, you still need to add yellow food coloring to get the perfect pumpkin orange!

Line your cupcake pans with your wrappers. Divide your cupcake mix into your 24 cupcake wrappers. Place 1 miniature Reese's Peanut butter Cup in the center of each uncooked cupcake and press down gently. Note: the Reese's need not be submerged; just make sure it's in the middle. Bake as directed on the box. When finished, allow to cool on the counter for 15 minutes and then in the fridge for 30-60 minutes. It is easiest to frost when these cupcakes are very cool.

Next, open your frosting tub and remove ~ 1/4 cup frosting. Set aside in another bowl. To the majority of the icing (still in the tub) add yellow & red food coloring until you get an awesome, bright orange color, suitable for a pumpkin. For the 1/4 cup of frosting in the bowl, add green food coloring until you get a nice, deep green color.

Remove the cupcakes from the fridge & ice as normal with the orange food coloring. Place back into the fridge for 5-7 minutes. After the icing has set, use a toothpick to draw lines in the frosting to represent the ridges in a normal pumpkin. Once you've done this to all the cupcakes, use the toothpick to place a glob of the green frosting at one end of the cupcake (where the lines converge). Shape to look like the pumpkin stem.

Finally, use the white gel icing to create any shape of jack-o-lantern eyes/nose/mouth you can imagine! Place back in the fridge one more time to allow the green & white icing to set, approximately 10 minutes. Serve & enjoy!