Halloween Spider Cupcakes

These are the last Halloween inspired treat for 2012, aren’t they cute?! In a creepy crawly kinda way… I think they would look great on a party table next to our Witches Hats, Meringue Bones and Sausage Mummies. You could always whip up one batch of cupcakes and decorate half as these spiders and the other half like Mel’s amazing Brain Cupcakes!

To make these creepy treats you will need:
Cupcakes
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoons cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup flour
1 egg
¼ cup milk
75g butter (melted)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
¼ cup boiling water

Basic chocolate icing
1 cup Chelsea rich chocolate icing sugar (you could use icing sugar and cocoa)
1 teaspoon softened butter
2 tablespoons boiling water

To decorate
chocolate hail for the body
24 m&m’s for eyes
licorice for the legs (straps work best but you can cut any licorice from the assortment box to work)

Method:
Pre- heat your oven to 180°C and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases.
Place all the cupcake ingredients in a bowl EXCEPT the water. Add water last - do not mix until it is added.
Beat well with a hand held mixer for about 2 minutes and once combined and smooth spoon evenly into your cupcake cases.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until you can remove a skewer cleanly from the centre of your cupcakes or they spring back when lightly touched.
Make your chocolate icing and using a knife apply liberally to each cupcake using a pallet knife (a butter knife if you don’t have a pallet knife will suffice).
Sprinkle chocolate hail over the ‘body’ of your spider and put matching m&m’s on the front for eyes.
Use a skewer to make three small holes in the sides (I know spiders have 8 legs but it looked a little crowded so I went for 6) of each cupcake to put your licorice straps in as legs.