Spooky Spider Web Cupcakes (Halloween 2014)

What's the best way to spend a cold, rainy October afternoon?  Designing beautiful Halloween treats, that's how!

Getting Started

I decided upon cupcakes so that I could make several spiderwebs, as well as a couple of other Halloween designs, sort of a Halloween assortment.  Of course I lined my cupcake tins with my re-usable silicone liners from Dollar Tree.  The cake mix this time was carrot cake and we used plain vanilla icing.  I needed the icing to be white so that it could be easily tinted with food coloring.

Notice the Halloween themed cookie cutters hanging in the background?  I love it when everything comes together :)

I first read about the spider web icing design a few years ago in a magazine, but you can find tutorials all over the place.  Pinterest is a great place to start, or you can read on to see how I do it.

After the cupcakes have baked and cooled, I start with a blank canvas of plain white icing.

Next I use a sandwich baggie of colored icing to create a swirl design on top.

Most food coloring packaging contains instructions for creating various colors.  The box that I had had instructions for everything but black.  Since black is what I wanted, I spent some  a lot of time experimenting :D

(You can read more about my sandwich bag method in this earlier post)

Making Webs

Position a toothpick at the center of the swirled icing, and carefully draw it out toward the edge of the cupcake.  Continue doing this all the way around until the swirl has been transformed into a cute little spider web.

Halloween Cupcakes!

In addition to the spider webs, I also used food coloring to make a few in orange and purple.  To the orange I added candy corn, and the purple I topped with chocolate sprinkles.  I liked how they turned out with the pop of color. They didn't last very long!

What kind of treats did you make for the holiday?  I love seeing your photos so send away, and have a fun and safe Trick-Or-Treating night!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2014