Halloween Cupcakes

I love this time of year.

I made cupcakes for my son to take to school to share. Really, I wanted to experiment with chocolate spider webs as garnish for a cake. If I was going to do that, I'd need to get them out of the house fast. So. Good snack for the 3rd grade.

To make:

Bake your favorite cupcakes a day or two ahead.

Cover a couple of baking sheets with wax paper or parchment paper. Or silpats. Just cover them, to help make cleanup easy later.

In the meantime, melt some chocolate or almond bark, which is what I used. It's cheap and melts easily. I used three squares that I cut off the block 'o almond bark.

Spoon the melted chocolate into a zip-top bag. Snip the very end off of one corner. We're crafting a pastry-bag-type implement.

Make circles with the melted chocolate.



Draw "spokes" out from the center to the edge of the farthest circle.



But Keetha! They look like wagon wheels! Not spider webs!

I found that four circles looks more spider web-ish than three. I was going for the affect rather a literal interpretation of a spider web.

Let the chocolate harden up, which takes just a few minutes. When the cupcakes are frosted, peel up the chocolate spider webs.



For the buttercream:

Cream together two sticks of unsalted butter. Add 5 to 6 cups of powdered sugar and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla. Add milk, a tablespoon at a time, until it's the consistency you want. Then tint with food coloring or food paste color.

My cupcakes have orange frosting - really - only it looks yellow in the photos.



Happy Fall!