These attractive seasonal cupcakes not only look the part for Halloween, but they taste yummy too. They’re a great idea for Trick or Treaters and are deliciously moist in texture. This recipe makes 16 cupcakes in total, so if that’s too many just pop them in the freezer once baked (without the topping) and enjoy at a later date! Happy Halloween!
Ingredients
- 3 small, ripe bananas
- 180ml buttermilk
- 3 large eggs
- 240ml cold water
- 150ml vegetable oil
- 350g golden caster sugar or granulated sugar
- 240g plain flour, sifted
- 65g cocoa powder, sifted
- 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- For the Topping:
- 200g dark chocolate
- 200g white chocolate
- Extra tools
- Piping bag
- Toothpick
Method
Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line cupcake trays with cupcake papers (you’ll need 16)
Place bananas in a large bowl and mash with a fork. Add in buttermilk, eggs, water and oil and mix together with a hand whisk until combined. Whisk in the sugar, then add flour, cocoa powder, bicarb and salt. Fold together until just combined. Note: the mixture will be wet and runny.
Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases and place in the oven to bake for 20 mins. Once cooked, remove from over and leave to cool for 5 minutes in the trays before placing the individual cakes on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
When you’re ready to decorate, melt the chocolate in separate bowls, using a pan of simmering water under your bowl of chocolate, until it melts. Spoon 3 tbsp of the melted white chocolate into a piping bag with a very fine tip.
Take one of the cakes and spoon on a tablespoon of melted white chocolate, so it covers the top. Now pipe 3 concentric rings on top using dark chocolate. Finish with a dot of dark chocolate in the middle. Use a toothpick to drag lines from the centre to the outside of the cake to look like a spider’s web. Six or seven lines is about right.
Repeat with the remaining cupcakes alternating between white chocolate base (dark chocolate web) and dark chocolate base (white chocolate web).
Leave to set before eating.
Pauline Mardell
