Black Cherry Funfetti Cupcakes with Maple Brown Sugar Frosting for Halloween!
This post was sponsored by Bai.
I think I take Halloween more seriously now as an adult than I did as a child.
When you’re a kid, you get to dress up weekly. We had (and still have) an entire closet at my parents house dedicated to playing dress up. It’s filled with princess costumes, a fake horse my mom made for my sister to wear/”ride”, and a lot of tiaras. So you see! Dressing up as a child was super common all times of year. When you turn into an adult no one tells you that you’re only going to be able to dress up once a year. lame.
Let me think of 3 positive things about being an adult. 1) margaritas. 2) you can do whatever you like. Like swim (in a cage) with sharks. AND 3) when you want to pretend to be sick and not go to work, you don’t have to convince your mom you’re sick…you can just not go to work. Excellent.
Back to Halloween. My best Halloween costumes of Halloweens past were: princess, princess, princess, princess, THEN I branched out and was mermaid. This year I want Andrew and I to be Beauty and The Beast. (me the beast and him beauty.) But he wants to be Ken Bone.
To get into the festive Halloween spirit, I decorated us up some Halloween cupcakes. First I bought a jumbo pack of plastic vampire teeth…mainly because I could only find them sold 144/pack on Amazon. So after this photoshoot I have 140 vampire teeth left. There are so many that I think they will last me until I have kids of my own.
For the decorations, I got:
googly eyes
aforementioned vampire teeth
Day of the Dead skulls
marshmallow fondant (to make little ghosts out of)
orange food dye
pretzel rods
I’m DYING over how cute the little ghosts are. I want to make a bajillion more of them and put them on a layered cake. Or just give them away to the trick-or-treaters. I think parents would frown upon that though, so I’ll put them on a cake.
OKAY. But look how cute these guys came out! It’s friendly halloween. Not scary halloween. Just like I like my halloween.
Into the cupcakes I added Bai Bubbles Bolivia Black Cherry. For drinking, this black cherry bai is my fav. Followed by their Gimbi Pink Grapefruit. Perhaps I’ll hand out Bai‘s to the trick-or-treaters. Perhaps not.
NOW. You may be thinking, “funfetti doesn’t sound halloween-esque.” BUT black cherry sounds spooky and dark to me, so now halloween and funfetti go together. I found that adding the Bai Bolivia Black Cherry helped the funfetti flavor be more present…if that makes sense. You’ll see what I mean when you smell the batter after you add the Bai in.
Black Cherry Funfetti Cupcakes with Maple Brown Sugar Frosting
Yield: makes a half dozen!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 18 minutes
Total Time: 33 minutes
Ingredients:
cupcakes
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 tbsp Bai Bubble Bolivia Black Cherry
2 tbsp sprinkles
maple brown sugar frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 tbsp unsalted butter
pinch salt
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1-3 tbsp milk (optional, depends on thickness level you prefer)
decorations
googly eyes
aforementioned vampire teeth
Day of the Dead skulls
marshmallow fondant (to make little ghosts out of)
orange food dye
pretzel rods
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. First. Make your cupcakes. In a bowl, creamy together butter and sugar, for about 4 minutes. Add in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add into wet ingredients and combine. Pour in Bai Bolivia Black Cherry and sprinkles and mix until smooth. Divide among 6 muffin tins with liners. Pour water into the 6 other muffin tins. Bake for 16-18 minutes.
While cupcakes bake, prep your frosting. In a bowl, place all frosting ingredients. Use an electric mixer to beat until fluffy.
Once cupcakes cool, frost and decorate. To make the ghosts, roll some fondant into a circle, then shape into a ghost + 'glue' on some googly eyes using frosting.
