Halloween: Nightmare Before Christmas Cupcakes

I found myself contemplating which design I would create on my Nutella-Filled Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes. Since fall has officially begun, I guess it’s ok to start with Halloween-themed cupcakes now. I usually prefer a slice of cake over a cupcake, but Halloween makes it so fun to bake them. There are endless cool & spooky designs to decorate cupcakes with. Jack Skellington is one of my favorite Halloween characters so I braved to put his face on a cupcake. The end result turned out to be kinda cool, though I didn’t have enough black frosting to decorate all 12 cupcakes. Since I don’t use butter in white frosting (else it will turn out yellow), it will never be as tasty as real buttercream icing, but the cupcakes & nutella tasted rather nice. Rating: 4 out of 5.



Jack Skellington & Sally at Disneyland Paris.



Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes: Martha Stewart - Living

Ingredients: Makes about 15
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose-flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (4 ounces or 1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ½ cup Nutella (optional)

Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 325°F/170°C.
- Cream the butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing 30 seconds between each addition.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the buttermilk to the butter/sugar/eggs, mix until well blended. Add remaining flour and buttermilk, mix until well blended.
- Fill the cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. Once cooled, fill the cupcakes with Nutella, using a pastry bag with a 1mm tip.




White Frosting:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
- 3 tablespoons shortening (not butter-flavored)
- 4 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon clear vanilla
- pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons milk

Instructions:
- Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl.
- Add shortening, milk and salt and mix until combined. Then, add the light corn syrup and vanilla, and mix until well blended.


Brown sugar pound cupcakes, cooling.


I used the back of a pastry-tip to cut out little pieces in the cupcakes.






After filling them up with Nutella, I put the piece of cake back into the hole, to seal in the Nutella.








The inside of a Nutella-filled brown sugar pound cupcake. The reason why I filled these cupcakes up with Nutella is that I particularly love the combination of brown sugar and chocolate.




Five Jack Skellington's smiling up at me! I think Tim Burton would be proud.