These spooky Halloween Black Cupcakes are an easy treat, perfect for any Halloween party!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! I’m a bit late to the party with this post, but these dainty cupcakes are just perfect for Halloween, I had to share ’em! You may have also noticed that my blog is looking a little different now. Do let me know what you think of the new look. 🙂
How do you get these cupcakes to be black?
Black cocoa + black food coloring gel. This combination helps achieve this jet black color for both the black cupcakes and the black frosting. I used my chocolate cake recipe and chocolate buttercream recipe, and replaced the dutch cocoa powder with black cocoa powder. Usually you don’t swap dutch cocoa powder with black cocoa powder – but I tested it in this recipe and made sure it works! I haven’t been able to find black cocoa powder in Canada yet, but if you’re in the US – you can get it easily through amazon.
What if I can’t find black cocoa powder?
If you can’t get your hands on black cocoa powder, then you will have to use black food coloring instead. You do have the option of using activated charcoal, but I haven’t used it for baked products since it can affect the texture of the cake and frosting. For black food coloring, I used Wilton black food coloring. I usually use Americolor, but the Wilton black coloring tints much better. Also make sure to get GEL FOOD COLORING, not the watery food coloring. Gel food coloring is a lot more concentrated, and you will need much less to get that jet black color.
Rose flavored chocolate ganache
Since I wanted the center of the cupcakes to be blood red in color, I went with a white chocolate ganache which I colored red, and then flavored with rose water. It’s a simple filling for the cupcakes, and really delicious too. Plus the sweetness of the ganache balances the cocoa flavor from the cupcakes quite well. To get that bright, bloody red color, I mixed a few drops of TULIP RED (from Americolor) and a couple of drops of SOFT BROWN (again from Americolor). Red coloring can taste weird if used too much, but the Tulip red color gel doesn’t have a weird after taste. So it’s a great way to color your baked goods bright red.
How to make these Bleeding Black Cupcakes
Making the cupcakes is easy.
I use my chocolate cake recipe, but replace the cocoa with black cocoa powder and add black gel food coloring. The recipe will make about 30 cupcakes. While I used regular cupcake liners, you can use fancy black cupcake liners to stay on theme as well, if you like.
Making the frosting
My chocolate buttercream frosting is incredibly creamy and delicious! However, I had to use a double batch of that frosting recipe to get all of these cupcakes frosted. I used black cocoa instead of dutch cocoa and added some black gel food coloring to get that gorgeous jet black color.
The filling
To keep the filling simple, I just made an easy white chocolate ganache, and then colored it red. Make this ahead of time so that the ganache has time to cool down and thicken by the time you’re ready to fill the cupcakes.
Filling and decorating Halloween cupcakes
There are 3 ways to core the middle of these cupcakes.
Frosting the cupcakes
Fill the middle with the rose white chocolate ganache. The ganache should be really thick but still pourable. Next, pipe the black chocolate frosting on the filled cupcakes. I went for large swirls, but you can do a simple rosette or anything that strikes your fancy! For the large swirls, I used a large open star tip, but you can also use a large closed star tip. If you don’t have any star tips, you can use a large round tip or just a ziploc bag with the edge snipped off.
Red sprinklesSilver Sprinkles
Decorating the cupcakes
You can decorate these Halloween black cupcakes HOWEVER you want! Here are some of my favorite ways.
Halloween sprinkles (Red & Black to go with the filling).Silver dragees or silver sprinkles.Sparkling sugar or a light dusting of luster dust.Drizzle of rose white chocolate ganache.Marshmallow webs – heat the marshmallows for a few seconds and then use your hands to stretch the marshmallow over the frosting. This looks amazing but also very sticky. Personally, it just wasn’t worth the mess for me for these cupcakes.
You can even get your kids involved with the decorating! These Halloween cupcakes are definitely a fun project to do with kids! 🙂
