Ghost Cupcakes

A couple of years ago I posted a spooktacular Graveyard Cake which was a huge success, not alone was it the centrepiece of our Hallowe'en party but when I made one to bring to a friends party they loved it too! 

This year I thought I would make these cute ghost cupcakes, they are such fun! It seemed to us that each of them had their own individual personality :)    

The fun was placing the chocolate chips just right to give each ghost their own facial expression!! I never noticed before but some chocolate chips are perfectly round and others have a slight elliptical shape which when positioned just right gave our ghosts a slightly amazed expression!! Have your own fun this Hallowe'en baking these cute ghosts....Enjoy! 

Makes 12

Ingredients
1 Qty Simple Cupcake Recipe*
1 Qty Vanilla Buttercream Recipe
Dark chocolate chips

Method
* I wanted a chocolate cupcake to emphasize the ghostly spectres on the top of the cupcakes so I amended my Simple Cupcake Recipe slightly by substituting the entire quantity of caster sugar with Light Brown Sugar, I also added an additional 40g of Cocoa Powder to the recipe.

I use a ice-cream/potato scoop to divide the batter, it makes for even sized cupcakes and muffins every time. 

The buttercream is my go to recipe to which I added 3tbsp of milk instead of 4tbsp, because I needed the ghosts to stand upright and not "spread" after piping them. 

I used a round piping tip, however if you don't have one then this instructional video (below) should be of use as no piping tip is required. Just make, fill and snip off the end - always start small when snipping the end off the piping bag, you can always make it bigger but not smaller!-  or forsaking all of that, fill a food safe freezer bag with the buttercream and as before snip the corner off and pipe.

I did a practice ghost on some parchment paper first to get the measure of the icing tip and how much pressure to apply. When piping the ghosts, just start at the outer edge of the cupcake and work in concentric circles, releasing the pressure on the bag at the top of the ghost.

Once you are happy with your piping, top each cooled cupcake a ghost and decorate with dark chocolate chips....ta da!