Witch's Cauldron Cupcakes

These spooky black chocolate cupcake cauldrons topped with gooey bright green vanilla buttercream bubbling adorned with witch's hats, broomsticks, black cats and scary signs make the perfect Halloween treat!

With Halloween just around the corner, my friend Kathy of Tiny Kitchen Cakes and I decided to make some super scary yet incredibly cute cupcakes!

Kathy made the fondant toppers, I made the cake and frosting and together we assembled!  They were really not too difficult to make either.

Here's what you'll need:

• Black cupcake liners from Sweets & Treats Boutique
• Black, Leaf Green, Purple, Yellow, Brown & Orange food coloring gel
• Chocolate cupcake recipe
• Vanilla Buttercream recipe
• Lime green sugar pearls
• Fondant
• Orange & black jimmies

How to make Witch's Cauldron Cupcakes:

• Prepare the chocolate cupcakes as directed.   Add enough black food coloring to the batter to make it as dark as possible.
• Prepare the buttercream and tint it lime green.  If you want to make some with orange swirls, reserve some white to tint orange.
• Color most of your fondant black and shape witch's hats, black cats, broom sticks and poles for the signs.
• Color some of the fondant green and cut out squares for the signs and small circles for the cat eyes.
• Color more of the fondant purple and yellow and cut out shapes to complete the witch's hat.
• Finally color fondant brown and make the bristles for the broom.
• Attach all the pieces together and set out to dry overnight.
• Make a small dollop of green frosting in the center of the cupcake.  Spread a small amount of frosting down one edge of the cupcake.
• Cover the frosting in green sugar pearls making sure not to press them too deep into the frosting.
• Top each cupcake with a dried fondant topper.
• Optionally - pipe swirls of orange frosting onto the cupcakes and sprinkle with orange and black jimmies.

A few things to know...

• The sugar pearls like to fall off these cupcakes, so make sure you have LOTS so you can pop more on when you need them.
• Reinforce the sign poles with a toothpick inside, this will help add stability.
• For 50 cupcakes, it took about 4 hours to make enough toppers, 3 hours to bake the cupcakes & make frosting and about 2 hours to assemble them.