The Halloween season is a time rife with packaged chocolates and candies. It is also a time when homemade Halloween treats can replace the boredom from such pre-packaged confections. Halloween Cupcakes are simple to make, loved by all, and allow people to show their creativity through the application of a variety of designs. Children especially love these treats, and involving them in the process of baking and decorating them can be a great way to teach children about baking, while also teaching them about moderation. The fun can be in the making of the treats – it doesn’t just have to be about eating them!
Halloween Cupcake Decorating Ideas
Once it has been decided that Halloween cupcakes are the ticket, start planning the decorating! Orange and black food colourings can be worked into the mix, and if free-hand piping is a skill, black cats, bats and witches are great places to start. Most children are not adept at free-hand piping; as it is important to keep them engaged in this project, consider a few alternate decorating tips.
In addition to holiday-themed icing, consider topping cupcakes with traditional Halloween candy such as candy corn, toffee pieces or broken up peanut butter cups. Use coloured sprinkles, gummy worms, or any other such childhood favourite, and watch the children have fun piecing everything together! Have them help apply icing to the cupcakes and then finish with either their own drawings or coloured pre-drawn pieces of paper taped to popsicle sticks. This lets children get involved in the decorating, while keeping each cupcake individualized.
Curled pieces of black licorice or broken pretzels dipped in dark chocolate can be used to make 8 spider legs coming out of the top of the cupcake, or can be placed as whiskers for a cupcake black cat. Use an icing filled ziploc bag with a hole cut in the end to squeeze out upright ghosts; start with a large round base and finish with a pointed head, adding two small sprinkle eyes for effect.
Store bought stencils can be used to make a variety of different cupcake patterns, and this gives children a little more control over the design. Specialty stores that sell such stencils, also sell cupcake moulds that are shaped in unusual forms – circles are no longer the only option! For an extra touch to the cupcakes, use decorative cupcake liners. If in a pinch, bake and ice the cupcakes, and top with dollar-store plastic Halloween favours. Plastic rings are a big favourite, in shapes such as spiders, bats, and other such creepy forms.
Feeling a little ambitious? Make the cupcakes part of something bigger! Use them to make a landscape of a graveyard out of cupcakes. Place baked cupcakes close together and apply brown icing to all of the cupcakes at once to make the “ground”. Crumble Oreo cookies on top and stick a shortbread cookie shaped like a tombstone into the individual cupcakes. Have children write “RIP” or other messages on the tombstones with edible markers and serve!
Harriet’s Halloween Candy
The worry with Halloween candy is that it can be easily abused. Bags of treats can be tempting to adults, and is even more tempting for children. If supplying Halloween cupcakes, but wanting to caution moderation with treats, consider reading Harriet’s Halloween Candy, by Nancy Carlson, to children. The book is about a young dog named Harriet who learns the hard way that sharing Halloween candy is a great way to make others feel better, and to ensure she doesn’t end up feeling sick from all of the chocolate and sugar. There has been great success with children relating to Harriet and learning the importance of sharing and moderation.
A great part of the fun and excitement for the season is in the eating of Halloween candy, but as families become more and more sensitive to issues involving sugar, it is a good idea to teach children about moderation, and to make the preparation of the food just as enjoyable as the eating of the food.