Spiderweb Halloween Cupcakes
on Oct 05, 2021
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Spiderweb Halloween Cupcakes made with dark chocolate, covered in decadent chocolate icing and topped with a web made from marshmallows not only taste fabulous but are the perfect treat for spooky season.
I’m a big fan of seasonal desserts. I think it is so fun to match the holiday with fun food. These cupcakes are just the right amount of spookiness for me. I like to keep Halloween cute and not scary. The addition of the marshmallow spiderweb will get your everyone’s attention at your Halloween party.
Spiderweb Halloween Cupcakes
You can never go wrong with a chocolate on chocolate dessert. These cupcakes are moist, delicious, and are not difficult to bake. These would be so fun to take to a school halloween treat, fall festival, or any seasonal get party.
Decorating these cupcakes is a cinch- a little mess, but super easy. Once the cupcakes are baked and the icing is on, it is time for my favorite part: the spiderwebs. To make the spiderweb you simple warm up marshmallows for 1-2 minutes until melted. I like to use gloves to stretch out the marshmallows but you can surely just use your fingers, it will just be messier. Once you have the desired thickness, drape the marshmallow over the icing to get the spiderweb effect. Each cupcake will look a little bit different and that is ok! I made a video of this for Instagram, so pop over there if you want to see this decorating method at work!
How full should I fill cupcake liners?
The rule of thumb is to fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Do not overfill them or you will have an overflowing cupcake mess, or cupcakes that make a “muffin top” out of the pan and are hard to get out of the pan.
How long should cupcakes cool before icing?
Before you frost your cupcakes you want them to be completely cool. It usually takes around 60 minutes. The butter in the frost will melt on a warm cupcake and get too soft if you don’t wait.
Do you spray paper cupcake liners with cooking spray?
It’s not a deal breaker, but giving a little spritz of non-stick spray will prevent cupcakes from sticking to the wrapper. And it depends a lot from brand to brand on if they stick. So if you have some that work well for you, stick to those!
More Halloween Treats and Recipes:
- Halloween Candy Cookie Bars (perfect use for leftover Halloween candy!)
- Halloween Popcorn Balls
- Halloween Mummy Hot Dogs (so easy and so fun!
- Easy Oreo Spider Halloween Snacks
- 5 Easy No-Bake Halloween Treats
If you’ve tried this Halloween Cupcake recipe or any other recipe on Bless this Mess, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below! I would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some pictures of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can repost on my stories AND add your photo to your comment so that other can see your creation.
Spiderweb Halloween Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 3 sticks butter, 1.5 cups, at room temperature
- 1 ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons cocoa
- 1 ounce black food coloring
- 2 ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 2 recipe chocolate buttercream frosting
- 1 cup mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Line 2, 12-cup muffin tine with liners and set aside (24 cupcakes total).
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
- Add cocoa and food coloring and mix to combine.
- In a small bowl add the flour and salt and stir to combine.
- In a second small bowl, add the vanilla and the buttermilk together.
- Add 1/3 of flour mixture to butter mixture and mix well.
- Add 1/2 of buttermilk mixture to the batter and mix well.
- Add another 1/3 of flour mixture to the batter and mix well.
- Add remaining 1/2 of the buttermilk and mix to combine.
- Add the last of the flour and mix to combine.
- In separate bowl mix baking soda and vinegar together.
- Immediately add to batter and mix well until everything is fully incorporated.
- Pour into paper lined muffin tins. Only fill 2/3 of the way full. DO NOT OVERFILL.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until the cupcakes spring back with lightly touched.
- Let cool completely before adding the frosting.
- Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes into a tall mound, go a little heavy on the frosting so that there’s something to stick the spiderwebs too.
- To make the webbing melt 1 cup of mini marshmallows in the microwave until melted. Do this in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals. They just need to be puffy, so 30 seconds to about 90 seconds works great.
- With GLOVED hands dip the tips of your fingers into the melted marshmallows then open your fingers over the top of your frosted cupcake and pull the strand over the surface of the frosting. The goal is to get the marshmallow into stretchy melted strands and you are going to pull them against the frosting so that they stick to it and pull of your gloves.
- Repeat with remaining cupcakes, warming up the marshmallows a little as needed so that they remain sticky.
- These would be cute with a little plastic spider on top though I couldn’t find any when I made them.
Notes
- I tried to get a really black icing and I added black food coloring to it. I also try it by adding charcoal powder to it. Both looked great, but truth be told, I didn’t like the taste of food coloring and I didn’t like the texture of the charcoal. You can play around with adding either of those if you like though might might not like the taste and texture too. In my opinion a good tasting frosting was better than a really black and neat looking one.
Nutrition
Even more Halloween Recipes!
- Dark Chocolate Halloween M&M Cookies
- Easy Halloween Spiderweb Bean Dip
- Halloween Sugar Cookies
- Halloween Cheese Board
- Green Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese (Toxic Waste Mac and Cheese) Great to enjoy before Trick-or-Treating!
Spiderweb Halloween Cupcakes are deliciously cute and oh so chocolatey. They are so fun to make with your kids and serve at your halloween festivities.
