As Halloween approaches, I have to admit there here is something delightfully liberating about being gross and disgusting. Not the “I’m a mom and have just instinctively thrust out my hands and caught my child’s warm vomit” kind of way of course. No, in the childlike “Look I’m eating this chocolate and candy bark made to look like vomit” kind of way. So, some Zombie cupcakes festooned with body parts and filled with bloodlike jelly seemed like the perfect “Cooking With Kids” project for the week.

Halloween Zombie Cupcakes 

Ingredients

  • One pack of cupcake mix – or enough of your own cupcake batter to make 12 cakes. You may want to multiply this amount by about 5 because these zombie cupcakes disappear petty quickly!
  • 12 cupcake liners
  • Enough frosting to generously top 12 zombie cupcakes
  • Red gel food colouring.
  • Green sprinkles
  • Any eyeball/ brain/body part candy that tickles your fancy.

Directions:

Preheat The Oven

Preheat to 350 °F, 180 °C, 160 FAN, or Gas Mark 4
Although these temps are just for the boxed mix I used, so check your own box. Unless you are making your own cupcakes from scratch, in which case – Go You!

Line Your Muffin Pan

There are so many fancy pants muffin cases available today it can be difficult to know which ones to choose. However, these were for the kids, and they just rip into them so plain black foil cases it was.

Batter Up

Mix your zombie cupcake batter according to the instructions on the box. Unless you are making actual, proper baking of course. If you are making your own, you don’t need my instructions here. In fact, could you pop round and give me a few cupcake making hints and tips?

Split & Colour

Divide your zombie cupcake batter, roughly equally, between two bowls. Add red food colouring to one batch and stir until you have a good red colour.

Pipe or Spoon

Fill two piping bag liners to about the 3/4 full point. If you don’t have piping bags, or, like me, you are a disaster in the kitchen and filling piping bags will result in the kitchen looking like a cake batter Jackson Pollack, you can skip this step and use spoons for the next bit. 

Fill Your Muffin

Use your pale batter as the ‘base” and drop generous dollops of red batter into it.

Bake

Cook your zombie cupcakes as per instructions, and set aside to cool completely.

Dig In

Use a large piping tip or a small spoon to dig a core out from the centre of your cupcake.

Fill

Spoon jam into the cavity and pop the core you cut out onto the top. Unless, like mine, your kids have stolen the little bits of cake and eaten them, in which case don’t worry. We’ll cover it up in the next step.

Frost & Decorate

Pipe or spoon on your frosting and adorn your zombie cupcakes with some candy eyeballs, jelly brains, or any other gross looking candy you can lay your hands on and hide from the kids long enough for them to make it onto the cakes.