Pumpkin Cupcakes

Halloween finally arrived at our house this weekend.  The decorations are set and we took Little Bug to her first Halloween party.  It was held with our new moms group and I decided to make pumpkin cupcakes to help celebrate the fun.

Starting with the orange cupcake liners from our Halloween cupcake liner mix, what really made these cupcakes look like pumpkins were their chocolate covered pretzel stick stalks.  I love how the milk chocolate dried in such a rough way that it really resembled an actual pumpkin.  The very generous coating of orange sanding sugar also helped (I used almost half a bottle on 18 cupcakes alone!).  Both kids and adults at the party loved this sweet treat and I got to be excited about how festive they looked.

Yields 18 Pumpkin Cupcakes

You Will Need

Orange Cupcake Liners

1 Boxed Cake Mix

Vanilla Frosting

Orange Food Coloring Gel

Orange Sanding Sugar

18 Pretzel Sticks

1/3 cup of milk chocolate chips

18 green Sour Patch Kids (or Jelly Fruit Slices work well too)

Directions:

1.  Line two muffin pans with orange cupcake liners.  Bake the boxed cake mix according to the cupcake directions.  To get a nice half dome shape for the pumpkin top of your cupcakes, fill each liner halfway.  Let cool.

2.  To make the pretzel stick stalks, melt 1/3 cup of milk chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 20 to 30 seconds.  Dip half of each pretzel into the chocolate.  Lay on waxed paper or aluminum foil to dry.  Put on a cookie sheet and leave in the freezer for ten minutes or until hardened.

3.  Mix the vanilla frosting with 8 to 10 drops of orange food coloring gel, depending on how strong your gel is.  Stir until you have the desired shade of orange.  Frost each cupcake.

4.  Dip each cupcake into the orange sanding sugar, getting an even coat on top.

Press in a chocolate dipped pretzel stick.

Arrange a green Sour Patch Kid next to the stick to be the leaf.

Since it was a Halloween party, I’m sure the next question you are wondering about is what did Little Bug dress up as.  Although I was leaning towards a good witch, she chose a monarch butterfly.

Being a toddler, standing still is not her strength.  But, she looked so cute fluttering about!

Happy Celebrating,

Natalie