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The Best Halloween Cupcakes
Published 10.23.2007 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)
Remember a while ago when our own Alice Bradley spoke about the term Alpha Mom on television?
"I think an alpha mom is somebody who is smart, who is plugged in, who is not afraid to admit that they don't know what they're doing all the time but they're gonna go out there and find the answers for themselves."
I agreed to make cupcakes for the big Cub Scout Halloween party last night. Since I do not usually do the baking or the cake decorating in our family I needed to seek out ideas.
I first turned to Not Martha's wonderful Crawly Cakes from last year's Halloween. She used various snack cakes, frosting, sugar eyes and Pocky to make the most fun edible creatures. The year before that she used homemade sugar ghosts and chocolate spiders to decorate cupcakes. Both were lovely and inspiring.
Family Fun is always a great starting point for Holiday treats. I loved these ghost and spider combinations but then sort of lost interest while reading the directions. These Daddy Long Leg Cupcakes also had potential but the process of putting 192 licorice legs into cupcakes just isn't on my list of things I want to do with my time.
The brain cupcakes at Epicurious seem really simple to make. Just pipe frosting through a pastry bag in a squiggly line making sure to separate the left brain hemisphere from the right.
I like the witch cupcakes at Food Network but I shut my brain off after 10 ingredients. It's a genetic defect I think.
Martha Stewart has some classic Halloween Creepcakes and some don't even seem that labor intensive. If you have a flat pastry tip, the mummies would be very easy to recreate. The tentacle alien creature though? Cub Scouts are awesome but I have other things to do too.
I bring up Alice's quote about Alpha Moms because I spent an afternoon looking up various cupcakes because I don't know how to make cute cupcakes. I had a grand vision of orange or green frosted cupcakes dusted with surgar crystals and dotted with sugar candy eyes, like those Not Martha clustered on her Crawly Cakes.
Then the weekend got away from me and yesterday, one hour before I had to pick up the kids from school and four hours before the party, I realized the cake decorating store I'd planned to get the sugar eyes from had closed.
When I got to the party there was almost every version of the cupcakes I just shared. Well thought out and nicely decorated and perfectly frosted cupcakes in many different colors.
I ended up with these cupcakes topped with sugar candies I picked up at the market on my way back from the closed cake decorating shop.
I thought it funny because I didn't do it perfectly but I'm still an Alpha Mom. I sought out all the information, collected inspiration and still did what was best for my family (and my sanity). The kids loved the cupcakes, mostly because the sprinkles turned their mouths black.
It also looks like Véronique at Little Elephants had a very similar moment of clarity as well.
Related Posts:
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- Great Halloween Crafts
- How To Take Great Halloween Photos
- What not to wear this Halloween
- More DIY Costumes (2007)
- Our Favorite Halloween Costumes for 2007
- Best Halloween Children's Costumes 2006
- Best DIY ideas for Halloween costumes (from 2006)
- Best Halloween Trick or Treating Bags, Masks and Costumes
- Best Halloween Cookies & Crafts
- Best Children's Halloween Books
- Another Halloween Tradition: Trunk-Or-Treat
- How To Take Great Halloween Photos
- Celebrating Halloween Traditions: Boo
- What not to wear this Halloween
- More DIY Costumes (2007)
- Our Favorite Halloween Costumes for 2007
- Best Halloween Children's Costumes 2006
- Best DIY ideas for Halloween costumes (from 2006)
- Best Halloween Trick or Treating Bags, Masks and Costumes
- Best Halloween Cookies & Crafts
- Best Children's Halloween Books
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Melissa Summers was one of five Melissa's throughout her schooling, in her everyday life she is the only Melissa who folds laundry. The name Melissa is derived from the Greek word for Honeybee. The Buzz Off is published weekly on Tuesdays. She writes almost nearly everyday at Suburban Bliss.
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