spooky cupcakes

I'm obviously a little behind, still focusing on Halloween stuff, but these were too fun to not feature. They were also probably one of my top 3 cupcakes of all time, taste-wise. It was so hard to eat just one! I made these specifically for Mark to take to work, and thought it fitting to use his mixer for the job. (It's a vintage Kitchen Aid crank mixer. It belonged to his grandma.)

I only used the ginger and cinnamon, leaving out the other cloves and nutmeg (I hate both). I think it still gives a good "spice" taste.

Of course the cupcake liners had to be spooky skulls, being for Mark and all.

This is my favorite fall mug - and it seemed appropriate to house the spatulas for this particular project!

While the 36 (!) cupcakes were cooling, I worked on the cream cheese frosting. This was hands down the best cream cheese frosting I've ever made. Thanks, Martha Stewart.

 I had so many to ice that I didn't pipe the frosting. Sometimes I like the look of the homemade, almost unkempt cupcake. I also usually don't deal with cupcake picks since they feel kind of wasteful since you just pull it out, but with the skulls and the pick your poison sayings, I made an exception.

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I had so much extra batter that I made an extra dozen cupcakes to take to my office to share. I ran out of picks so I used my other Halloweeney sprinkles and went to town.

And my favorite shot, since I took it right before I plopped this directly into my mouth. SO delicious. I almost want to make them for Thanksgiving!