Halloween is just about to creep up on all of us so to frighten away any last minute party woes here’s a quick and simple recipe and tutorial for ghoulish chocolate pumpkin cupcakes with a thick ‘black tar’ drizzle! If you’ve no canned pumpkin purée to hand simply use some blitzed beetroot in it’s place for moist chocolate cupcakes with a slight quirky dimension of flavour!
Our taste buds were inspired to whip up these cupcakes after sampling some delicious chocolate pumpkin truffles with a lovely light spiced aroma and taste! In the kitchen we tested batches of chocolate cupcakes with a pumpkin pie-style filling, mixed up a light cocoa cake with pumpkin, and tried vanilla with pumpkin spice cupcakes paired with 70% dark chocolate buttercream. In the end the subtlety of a dark chocolate cake mixed with lightly spiced pumpkin purée and swirled with a simple vanilla buttercream won us over!
The best thing about these simple cupcakes is that the thick, oozing black tar (sssh… it’s really royal icing) is such a fantastic and easy way to decorate these freshly baked treats! No stress over creating edible fondant zombie figures or hand painted eyeballs in sight (no pun intended).
- FOR THE CUPCAKES... 226g self raising flour
- 226g butter
- 226g caster sugar
- 4 eggs (medium is the standard sized used for baking)
- 1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder mixed with boiling water to make a paste)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons canned pumpkin purée
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon allspice
- FOR THE VANILLA BUTTERCREAM... 250g butter
- 250-300g icing/confectioner's sugar
- 6-8 drops vanilla extract to taste
- FOR THE BLACK TAR ROYAL ICING... 1 egg whites from medium sized egg
- 188g icing/confectioner's sugar
- 1-3 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1-2 teaspoon black gel or paste food colour
- FOR THE CUPCAKES...Preheat your oven to 170 degrees C / 325 degrees F / Gas mark 3
- Add diced butter to a stand up mixer and mix until creamy.
- Add in the sugar. Mix well.
- Gradually add in the flour whilst mixing. We add half and mix well before we include the last half of the flour.
- Finally, incorporate the cocoa paste, spices, pumpkin purée, baking powder and eggs until fully mixed.
- Separate the batter between 12 cupcake cases. We aim for each case to be 2/3 full. (Please note that cupcake cases vary in size so please adjust where necessary)
- Bake for around 20-30 minutes or until ready! Once baked set aside to cool.
- FOR THE BUTTERCREAM.. Add diced butter to a stand up mixer and cream.
- Sift in the icing / confectioner's sugar until a consistency and taste you are happy with. When you're able to taste equal amounts of butter and sugar it's ready.
- Add in the vanilla extract and mix. Don't over mix or you'll be left with lots of annoying air bubbles.
- FOR THE BLACK TAR ROYAL ICING... In a lemon cleaned bowl with a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment whisk the egg white on high speed until frothy.
- Once your egg white is ready and white and frothed up add in the icing sugar. Mix on high until glossy and add in the lemon juice and black food colouring.
- Consistency-wise your royal icing should be similar to non-set honey. If it's too stiff simply add a little lemon juice, mix it in, and test.
- All recipes are tried, tested and revised by us regularly and we can ensure that these recipes are accessibly for hobbyist and professional bakers alike. Though great care is taken by us to make our recipes achievable varying ingredients, uneven oven temperatures, different types or brands of cases (from silicone liners to cardboard loaf cases), or even not following the recipe accurately can effect your result.
For some Halloween fun you could easily make these cupcakes extra gruesome by adding a little green gel or paste food colour into your buttercream for a zombie-inspired frosting! We also love the idea of making quick fondant bones, hands or legs to poke out of your home made royal icing tar!
We hope you enjoy whipping up this recipe and that you have a terror-ific Halloween!
