Cupcakes for Bonfire Night

So I'm conscious that I often blog about the differences between baking in North America and the UK, and now that we're entering the holiday season I can tell you right now I'm going to do it even more.  After growing up in Canada, and experiencing over 25 Thanksgivings, Halloweens, Christimas' and other holidays I can't help but compare my Canadian heritage & holiday traditions with my newly found UK ones.  I'll elaborate more on the differences in the coming weeks when I start to do my Christmas baking, but for now I'm still getting over Halloween.  As I've mentioned before, Halloween is considered to be a fairly recent "holiday" here in the UK, and trick or treating and pumpkin carving are increasing in popularity every year.  Back when I was much younger I remember someone telling me that Halloween was a North American holiday and that they celebrated something called Guy Fawkes Day (aka Bonfire Night) in the UK, and instead of trick or treating they held bonfires across the country.  To be honest, I thought that going to a bonfire instead of trick or treating sounded a bit lame.  But c'mon - when your 12 years old a lot of things sound a bit lame.  Even if it really is super cool, and you just don't want to admit it. 

For those of you who don't know the story behind Bonfire Night (which is probably most people living outside the UK), it all comes down to a foiled attempt by a man called Guy Fawkes who tried to overthrow the King of England by blowing up the London Houses of Parliament way back on November 5th 1605. (I'd suggest watching the movie V for Vendetta, to learn more about Guy Fawkes and the Gun Powder Plot).  Shortly after the incident the public began to make their own "Guys" using old clothes, crumpled paper and straw.  The Guy was then thrown on top of a bonfire to burn, and fireworks were set off while the public celebrated the foiled gun powder plot.   

 Photo courtesy of Brockham Bonfire

Fast forward 405 years and Bonfire Night is still going strong.  It's also quickly becoming one of my favourite UK traditions.  The first year I moved here my husband and I had no idea what Bonfire Night was, so we just stayed at home like an old married couple wondering why all the fireworks were going off.  Last year we were fortunate enough to be informed about Bonfire Night, and which bonfires were the best ones to go to.  It turned out the the bonfire with the largest and most expensive fireworks show in all of the UK was pretty close to where we live.  We had no idea what to expect, except that we should dress warmly and arrive super early in order to get one of the coveted 200 parking lot spaces.  Each year the Brockham Bonfire attracts close to 25,000 people, so 200 parking spaces to share amongst the crowd is a little insufficient.  But hey, that's part of the charm of the whole event.  It takes place in a tiny little village green that's not much bigger than a skating rink.  Well that night were absolutely amazed with what we saw and vowed to go back again the next year. 

And that's exactly what we did!  This past Saturday (November 6th to be exact) we went back to the Brockham Bonfire and we were not disappointed. We arrived at 4:30 in order to get that all important parking spot (there's no parking on the road, so many people walk for miles along dark single lane back roads to get there). There's not a whole lot to do before the bonfire and fireworks get under way at 7:45, but they do sell food like BBQ'd hamburgers, hot dogs, freshly roast pig, etc. At about 6:30 a procession starts with some of the local people dressing up in traditional costumes.  The people carry flaming torches and pull the giant "Guy" in a wagon throughout the village for nearly an hour while a marching band plays.  As the procession returns to the starting point, even more people join in and everyone is given a flaming torch.  They circle around the bonfire pile and wait for the giant Guy Fawkes to be hoisted up on top of the bonfire.  There's something eerily creepy about hundreds of people approaching you with flaming torches!  It's like your actually in an old fashioned horror movie.  Once the all clear is given, everyone throws their flaming torch onto the bonfire pile and it quickly goes up in flames.  The Guy is stuffed with fire crackers, so once the flames reach the top hundreds of loud pops and bangs start to go off. These firecrackers signal the start of the fireworks, and we witnessed one of the most amazing fire works shows we've ever seen. 

 

 

I think the thing that makes bonfire night so special for me, is that back in North America there would be no way in hell hundreds of people would be allowed to parade through town with flaming torches before lighting fire to a 30 foot bonfire pile. The whole Bonfire Night tradition is a very civilized family event.  Everyone joins in, and the same families have been helping to build and put on the bonfire and firework shows for generations.  

So in honor of Bonfire Night I made some special cupcakes to celebrate.  These are super easy, and you only need a few things to make them. 

Bonfire Night Cupcakes

Cupcakes of your choice 

White icing 

Black, red & orange food colouring 

Pretzel Sticks* or chocolate sticks 

Pop Rocks 

 

1. Start out by dividing your white icing into 3 bowls.  Tint one bowl grey, one red, and the last one orange.  Cover the top of your cupcake in grey icing (it doesn't have to be smooth) this will be the "ashes" on your cupcake. 

2. Gently combine the orange and red icing into one bowl so that it's slightly swirled together. Make sure not to mix the icing together too much - you don't want the colours to totally blend together.  Spoon the red & orange icing mixture onto the center of your cupcake, making sure to build the icing up into a little peak. These are the bonfire flames. Now sprinkle on some red & orange pop rocks over top of the icing flame, and you're almost done. 

3. Finally, take some pretzel sticks and lay each one over the icing flame to create a bonfire pyramid.  That's it!  You're done.  Told you they were easy!  Not only are these a really great tradition to make on Bonfire Night, but the addition of pop rocks even makes the cupcakes sound like they're really popping and burning! 

*Note: They don't normally sell pretzel sticks in the UK, but I've been able to find them in the local Polish shops (along with Cheetos brand cheezies - oh yeah!). If you can't find pretzel sticks, don't worry.  There's lots of other things you can use to look like sticks or logs such as Twiglets, Mikados, Matchmakers, etc.  

These cupcakes are really cute, and are perfect for kids to make each year as a Bonfire Night treat. Since I've only lived in the UK for just 2.5 years I'm not aware of any other traditional Bonfire Night treats, but I'm sure there are lots.  Do you have any favourites?

Cupcake Camp London

After months of anticipation Cupcake Camp London finally arrived last Sunday, which also happened to be Halloween.  As I'm sure you're all aware, I helped to sponsor the event, and shared a table with Cupcake Kelly from an American Cupcake in London.  I'll admit, that although I was a sponsor, I underestimated just how popular Cupcake Camp London was going to be.  It seemed like almost every day a new judge or special guest was being added, and more and more cupcakes were being donated. As a result I began to feel under a bit of pressure to show up to Cupcake Camp with loads of amazing cupcakes.  For some reason I hadn't given a lot of thought to the cupcake flavours I was going to bake, and as a result found myself testing out new recipes the day before.  I don't recommend you do this by the way.  In the end I settled on making 4 different cupcakes:    

Blood Velvet Cupcake

Cookies & Cream: Moist chocolate cake with  an Oreo cream cheese filling and Oreo crumb buttercream 

Apple Spice: Apple spice cake topped with cinnamon cream cheese icing 

Blood Velvet: Red velvet cake topped with cream cheese icing and "blood" drops 

Pink Champagne: Pink champagne cupcakes filled with white chocolate ganache, topped with strawberry champagne buttercream

Apple Spice Cupcakes with mini fondant apples

After baking nearly 100 cupcakes, I stood back, looked at them and thought - how on earth am I going to get 100 cupcakes, 3 cake stands, posters, fragile gumpaste decorations, and all my other supplies down to the venue in Camden using only the train and tube?  Let me tell you - it wasn't easy!  Luckily I had a strong husband to help!  But seriously, I don't recommend anyone try and lug 100 cupcakes + supplies 25 miles using only public transportation.  The only saving grace was that we were travelling on a Sunday, and not in week day rush hour traffic like I had done before for Iron Cupcake London. 

 Made With Pink's Table Display

When we finally got to the event, I still needed to ice my Blood Velvet and Apple Spice cupcakes (the cream cheese frosting is soft & I didn't want the swirls loosing their shape), set up my table and put the decorations on my cupcakes.  To make a long story short, I just barely managed to get everything done in time, before the public started filtering in, but I did it and I think our table looked pretty good!  Daisy Coole (the event organizer) hooked Kelly and I up with a pretty good table location as well - we were the second table in the main room which meant that our cupcakes were among the first that people would see when they entered the venue.

Cupcake Kelly's Table complete with Sundae, Bubble Gum, Orange Velvet & Root Beer Cupcakes

One of my cupcake stand with Cookies & Cream, Apple Spice & Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Cupcake tickets were sold for £1 each, and could be exchanged for 1 cupcake, which meant that a person could come away with 12 delicious cupcakes for only £12. A bargain!

 Cupcake Camp London also sold frosting shots!

The Camp was held at the Stables Market in Camden at a venue called Proud Galleries which was actually an old horse hospital back in the 1800's.  I think that's pretty cool. Unfortunately the lighting inside wasn't great for taking pictures, so I didn't get many good ones.  And because I had to stick near my table to hand out my cupcakes, I wasn't able to get many pictures of  all the amazing cupcakes that the other bakers had donated, but I managed to get a few.   

 Little Work of Art Category

Halloween category

Halloween category

As you can see above, there was a also contest element for Cupcake Camp with several different categories including "Halloween", "Best Taste", "Little Work of Art", "Best Vegan" and "Taste of London".  I had been planning my Halloween entry for weeks after coming across an amazing cupcake book called A Zombie Ate My Cupcake, which had loads of Halloween inspired decorating ideas. I had planned on making the "Bleeding Heart" cupcakes, which was essentially a Red Velvet Cupcake wrapped in red fondant and coated in a slimy red piping gel to look like a real bleeding heart! 

Bleeding Heart picture courtesy of Lily Vanilli

I managed to find some gory paper plates with bloody hand prints on them to serve up my bleeding heart cupcakes, but my plans were foiled when I found out that the author - Lily Vanilli had been added as a last minute judge in the Halloween category.  I didn't want it to look like I'd directly copied all her ideas and presented them to her at Cupcake Camp, so I had to come up with a new idea.  Something artistic, and a bit gruesome!  After a lot of thought, I settled on a Red Velvet cupcake that I covered in cream cheese frosting, and then rolled peach fondant to look like a brain.  But a just brain alone is a little boring.  It needed a something extra so I made a saw blade out of grey gumpaste, and added some shimmer dust to it to give it a metallic look. And of course, I had to add a bit of blood to complete the realistic look! 

I wasn't sure if the Halloween category was going to be judged on looks or taste, so I also included a normal blood velvet cupcake on the plate as well.  In the end, the cupcakes were only based on looks and although my brain cupcake didn't win, I'm still really pleased with the way it turned out.  Eerily realistic!  I'd love to make these again next year, and if people are interested I'll even do a little tutorial to show you how I made them.  They're not hard - I promise! 

Overall, I had a really great time at Cupcake Camp, and look forward to next years event.  A huge congratulations must go out to Daisy Coole who organized the event - I don't know how she did it!    

There was so many cupcakes at Cupcake Camp, I don't know how people chose!

In the end, nearly 2,500 cupcakes were donated and the total money raised for the North London Hospice Society was nearly £4,000!  All you bakers out there should be very proud of yourselves!

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to put up a quick post to wish everyone a very Happy Halloween, and to thank those of you who turned out today for Cupcake Camp London.  It was a really fun event and we had a great turn out with thousands of cupcakes (nearly 2,500!) and loads of eaters.  There were so many amazing cupcakes, I don't know how people decided on which ones to get!  I baked four different flavours for the event: Pink Champagne, Blood Velvet (aka Red Velvet), Cookies & Cream, and Apple Spice, and sold out in just over an hour!  All proceeds from the day went to the North London Hospice Society, and although I don't know the total amount raised I'm sure it was a lot!  I'll do a full re-cap of the event soon, but in the mean time I'll leave you with a picture of my Halloween inspired brain cupcake.  Beware - it's pretty gruesome!

Yes!  That is a cupcake!  Inside my fondant brain is a delicious "Blood Velvet" cupcake with cream cheese frosting.  I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Very gruesome indeed!

Wicked Milk Chocolate Mousse

Well, it's finally here!  Cupcake Camp London is this Sunday (Halloween) and before I go into full cupcake baking mode, I just wanted to get one last Halloween post up.  As a sponsor of the event I feel under a lot of pressure to bring some amazingly delicious cupcakes, and with only 1 day left before Cupcake Camp London gets under way I'm still trying new recipes and deciding on what flavours to bring!  I'd LOVE to bring a dozen different flavours, but I'm fairly limited with the number of cupcakes I can bring as I've got to bring everything with me on the train and tube.  Luckily I've got my husband and a good friend to help me carry everything!  

A few weeks ago the lovely folks at Sainsbury's sent me some milk chocolate from their new Taste The Difference Range.  Usually I use dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa when I bake, so using milk chocolate was a nice change. After considering a few dessert options, I finally decided on chocolate mousse.  Chocolate mousse in edible Halloween candy cups! 

Pretty cute huh? 

To make these milk chocolate mousse cups you'll need a few simple ingredients.  Milk Chocolate, whipping cream, egg yolks, sugar and Wilton candy melts. I'd recommend using a thermometer when your cooking the egg yolks to ensure their cooked properly. 

Milk Chocolate Mousse 

8oz (230g) chopped milk chocolate
1/2 cup (125ml) water, divided
2 Tbs (30ml) butter (no substitutes)
3 egg yolks
2 Tbs (25g) sugar
1 1/4 cups (295ml) whipping cream, whipped
Chocolate cups (instructions here) 

1. In a double boiler, heat the milk chocolate,butter and 1/4 cup (60ml)of the water.  Stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are melted. Cool for 10 minutes. 

2. In a small heavy saucepan, whisk egg yolks, sugar and remaining water. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture reaches 160ºF (72ºC). Remove from the heat and whisk in the chocolate mixture. Set saucepan in ice and stir until cooled, about 5-10 minutes. 

3. Whip your cream until it's nice and thick - but not buttery.  Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.   

4. When you're ready to serve the mousse gently spoon it into a piping bag and then squeeze it into your chocolate cups (instructions are here).  

I decided to make a last minute change to my mousse, and tried to tint it black by substituting half of the water in step 2 for liquid black food colouring.  It turned out great until I added my white whipped cream which obviously turned the finished mousse grey.  If you want a darker black mousse then I'd suggest replacing all the water in step 2 (or 1 for that matter) with the black food colouring.   

Sprinkle on a few co-ordinating decorations of your choice and you've got a really tasty and somewhat sophisticated Halloween dessert! 

When I piped my first cup of mousse I immediately thought they looked like cute little witches hats, so I decided to channel my inner Elphaba and make green chocolate cup as an ode to Wicked - my favourite musical!

Happy Halloween!!!

You Little Devil!

Guess what - Halloween is getting closer!  Just 2 weeks away now, which also means that Cupcake Camp London is also only 2 weeks away!  I've got a quick little cupcake decorating post for you all, with another larger post coming tonight or tomorrow that you definitely won't want to miss.  This post was also featured on The Pink Little Cake blog today, and is part of their 28 Days of Halloween series - check them out for lots of other cute Halloween ideas! 

To make these Little Devils you'll need:

Cupcakes - preferably in red liners

Red buttercream icing

Red sanding sugar - *instructions below

Red candy melts

1. Start out by covering the top of your cupcake with the red buttercream icing.  It doesn't matter if the icing isn't perfectly smooth, just make sure that the icing meets the edges of the cupcake liner.

 

2. Now it's time to cover your frosted cupcake in the red sugar*.  To do this you'll need to have your sugar in shallow bowl that's wide enough to fit the top of your cupcake in, plus a little extra.  Start by holding your cupcake upside down and gently rolling it around in a circular motion, making sure to get to the edges where the icing meets the paper liner.  Keep on rolling your cupcake in the sugar until the top is completely covered in red sugar and it's got a nice shape to it.

* For those of you who don't have any red sugar on hand, or don't want to use up all your expensive decorating sugars for this, you can make your own red sugar for free!  I don't really like to store bought decorating sugars because the individual grains are too big to cover a cupcake with, and as a result they don't give it a very nice texture.  Instead I take some fine granulated or caster sugar, put it in a plastic zip lock back and add a few drops of liquid red food coloring.  Seal up the bag, and start to smoosh the sugar around, so that the food coloring mixes with the sugar.  Do this until the food coloring is entirely mixed with the sugar.  If it's not dark enough, just add a bit more food coloring and repeat the same process.

3. To make the devil horns you'll need to melt some red candy melts and pour them into a disposable piping bag or a plastic zip lock bag, and snip the tip off so you've got a small opening. On a non stick surface such as a silicone baking sheet or clear plastic sheet, start creating an outline of the devil's horn (# 1 in the photo). Next you'll need to fill it in, don't worry about getting the chocolate perfectly smooth while your doing this - just make sure there's enough to fill the horn (#2 in the photo). Now take a tooth pick and smooth out the candy melts so the horn is completely filled and there are no empty patches. Make sure that the candy melts meet the edges of the horn.  If you don't have any candy melts you could also use red royal icing which should work just as well.

4.  Let your candy melt horns set, and very gently peel them off.  Now place them into the top of your cupcakes and you're done!  I think I made my horns a bit too big, but feel free to experiment with different sizes.

There you have it - you're own little devil cupcakes!  Perfect for Halloween!  I hope you all can give these a try, and if you've got your own little devils at home I'm sure they'd love to help make these!

Sticky Caramel Apples

I don't know when the last time I had a caramel apple was.  A rough guess would probably be over 20 years ago, but for some reason I really got the urge to make a batch this year.  Halloween is quickly approaching which signals the start of the holiday season for me.  It also means that I get to look back on nearly 30 years of Canadian holiday traditions - most of which I don't get to see here in the UK.

Halloween is a relatively new thing over here, and it's for kids only.  No crazy adult parties with everyone decked out in costumes, no one really carves a pumpkin or decorates their yards to look like graveyards, and worst of all there are no traditional home baked Halloween treats!  Kids are just beginning to trick or treat which means that the adults who own the doors these kids are knocking on probably aren't aware that Halloween is making it's way "across the pond." 

Over the next few months my blog will be filled with traditional Holiday treats, including some UK ones I've grown to love since moving here 2 years ago.  

Anyway, back to the apples!  For North Americans (more for Americans I'd say) caramel apples are a pretty traditional snack around Halloween.  They come in every size and flavour imaginable, and have become pretty trendy lately with specialty stores selling nothing but gourmet caramel apples covered in everything from drizzled chocolate to crushed oreos and gummy bears.  I decided to keep it simple and used finely crushed oreo crumbs and some cute milk and white chocolate stars.

 

Making caramel apples is fairly easy, all you'll need is some caramels, a small amount of heavy cream, candy to decorate and of course some apples! 

I'm not sure if they sell chewy caramels like this in the UK.  I've never seen them, but to be honest I've never looked.  I have a feeling that Werther's Original Chewy Toffee pieces would probably work though.  I bought my bag of Caramels way back in August when I went back to Canada - yeah, they were already selling Halloween candy back then! 

Try using different sizes of apples. I found some cute mini ones that would be good for kids. The one in the middle formed some bubbles in the caramel that look like creepy warts :-s

Caramel Apples

6 apples - I prefer tart ones like Granny Smiths
14oz (400g) chewy caramel pieces
2 Tbsp (30ml) heavy cream
6 popsicle sticks 

1. Start up by inserting a popsicle stick into each apple, and then place them in the freezer for 15 minutes (this helps the caramel set). 

2.  In large glass measuring cup, melt your caramel pieces in the microwave together with the heavy cream, and stir until smooth.  Try melting the caramels for 1 minute, and then 30 second intervals after that.   

3. Take your apples out of the freezer and dip them into the melted caramel using the popsicle stick as a handle.  Start by plunging each apple directly into the caramel, rotating it with the stick to help coat the apple evenly.   

4. Once covered, pull the apple out of the caramel and let the excess drip off.  If you'd like to put any "toppings" on your apple, now's the time to do it.  Immediately after I take the apple out of the caramel I place it in the oreo crumbs and let it set.  The caramel will set quite quickly if you're apples are cold, so you'll also have to work quickly!  Make sure you set your apples on some kind of non stick surface like a greased plastic lid or a silicone baking mat so they don't stick! That's pretty much it!

You can eat these apples off the stick, but I prefer to cut mine up into sections and share it with someone else.  I find that they're quite filling and there's a lot of chewing involved, so I couldn't eat a whole one.

A Creepy Confession

So I have a confession to make.... I've never made anything from a recipe book. Ok - well except for Pesto from a Giada de Laurentiis book, and Julia Child's Roast Chicken, but those don't really count because they're so simple.  I've got a ton of recipe books, and many of them are cupcake books - BUT I've never tried making a recipe from any of them.  Why you ask?  Well I'm an instant gratification type of girl. I hate it when things don't turn out. I hate wasting my time and ingredients on something that doesn't turn out exactly as I wanted it to.  I don't like to be disappointed. To avoid failure, I usually turn to the Internet for recipes and inspiration.  I've been known to spend hours reading reviews for a single recipe, making note of every reviewers recommendations, and adding in my own as well.  You just can't do that with a recipe book! 
  

Seeing as I'm sponsoring Cupcake Camp London I decided to bite the bullet and finally make something from one of my many cookbooks.  I finally decided on the Chocolate Cupcake recipe from the Primrose Bakery book.  I'll admit that I consulted a few of my followers on Twitter to help me make my final decision, but I didn't spend more than 10 minutes doing it. Next time I promise not to look at any reviews and just bake!  Baby steps...
 

The Primrose Bakery Chocolate Cupcake recipe called for melted dark chocolate to provide the flavour, but I opted to use a coffee infused dark chocolate bar from Green and Blacks which gave the cupcakes a really nice mocha flavour. Overall, I thought these cupcakes were pretty good, and would recommend you give them a try. 

When I announced that I was sponsoring Cupcake Camp London I told you that I would be featuring a few different cupcake recipes and ideas to get everyone excited about the event. I've made a few this week and the first 2 are perfect for Halloween.  Hopefully these get your creative juices flowing! 

Creepy Crawly Cupcakes: 

You will need: 

Chocolate Cupcakes ( I used the Primrose Bakery recipe below)
Chocolate Icing
Black Sugar or Chocolate Cookie Crumbs
Black Liquorice
Red candies 

These are super easy to make.  You'll either need some chocolate cookie crumbs or some black sugar for these.  I like prefer the texture of sugar, so that's what I used. The US has a huge selection of cake decorating products, so black sugar shouldn't be that hard to find.  Here in the UK we don't have as big a selection, so I had to make my own black sugar.  It's really easy to do, and very economical.  To make your own coloured sugars you'll need some zip lock sandwich bags, sugar and liquid food colouring.  Start out by putting 1/2 cup (225gr) of sugar into a zip lock bag, and then add in a few drops of liquid black colouring.  Seal up the bag, and start kneading the sugar and food colouring together until they're combined.  The sugar should be even in colour, and there shouldn't be any patches of food colouring left.  The sugar should be damp, but not really wet at the stage.  Let the sugar dry out for an hour or so, and then add in a bit more colouring and repeat the same process. Do this until you get the colour your wanting, making sure that you let the sugar dry fully each time before adding more colouring.  I used white sugar, so had to repeat the steps above a few times.  You may want to try using brown sugar that's been left out overnight so it looses some of it's moisture.   

1. First things first - start by putting a big dollop of frosting on top of each cupcake.  Don't worry about it looking too pretty.  Just use a knife to spread it around, ensuring that you cover the entire top of the cupcake so the icing meets the paper liner. 
 

2. Fill a small bowl with the black sugar or cookie crumbs.  Then take each cupcake and lightly roll the frosted top in the sugar making sure to cover all the icing.
   

3. Now that you've got your blackened cupcake you can start to create your spider! You'll need to give it some liquorice legs - I used Catherine Wheels that I cut to the correct length. I decided that my spider looked better with 6 legs than 8, but you can decide what looks best on yours. 

4. Finally it's time to give your spider some fangs/eyes.  I used some red candy coated sun flower seeds that I brought back from the US.  I haven't seen these in the UK before, but you can use whatever candy and colour you want. Red tic tacs or skittles cut in half would work well.

There you have it!  A creepy crawly Halloween spider!  He looks kinda cute doesn't he!  But you know what - where there's one spider, there's usually more.  This spider has a wife. 

A wife who's also a mom.  And all moms know that when you have kids you have to keep a close eye on them!

Chocolate Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery  

*Since the Primrose Bakery book is from the UK all measurements were given by weight. I've converted the weights into ounces for my American readers, but unfortunately I didn't think to measure them out in cups at the time.

4 oz (115g) good quality dark chocolate (I used coffee infused 70% dark chocolate)
3oz (85g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6.20oz (175g) soft brown sugar
2 large eggs, separated
185g flour
3/4tsp baking powder
3/4tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup (250ml) semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature
1tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (170ºC (fan) /190ºC).  Line either a muffin tin (for regular-sized cupcakes) or a mini cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

2. Melt the chocolate then leave to cool slightly.

3. Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric hand beater until pale and smooth. In a separate bowl and with clean beaters beat the egg yolks for several mins. Slowly add the egg yolks to the creamed butter and sugar and beat well. Next, add the chocolate to this mixture and beat well.

4. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking of soda and salt. Combine the milk and vanilla together in a measuring cup. Add the flour mixture to the chocolate, butter and sugar, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Beat very well after each addition.

5. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. Carefully fold the eggs whites into the main batter using a metal spoon. Do not beat or you will take all the air out of the cake.

6. Pour the batter into your lined cupcake pan - about 2/3 full. Place the pans in the oven and bake for 20-25 mins for the regular size cupcakes or 13-15 mins for the minis. Let the cupcakes cool on wire racks before icing.

Dad and the babies:

If spiders creep you out to much, worms might be a better option for you! 

To make these cute worm cupcakes you'll need to roll your iced cupcake in chocolate sprinkles (or cookie crumbs) to create the dirt.  Next, cut a gummy worm in half and place each end on either side of the cupcake making sure to push the ends into the icing far enough so that they won't fall out.  Now it looks like the worm has crawled though the top of your cupcake!