These spooky meringue ghost cupcakes are the perfect topping for my Halloween marbled cupcakes. I used orange, purple and green cake batter and they turned out perfect and spooky.

Are these ghost cupcakes cute or spooky? I personally think they are both but I think cute cupcakes go against the whole theme of Halloween. Never mind, they certainly are delicious.

Ghost Cupcakes

I based the ghost cupcakes on my Velvety Vanilla Cupcake recipe. It is the most delicious and easiest cupcake recipe to make. I did slightly complicate it by adding in different food colours but if you don’t want to do that and just want the simple vanilla cupcakes then you can, of course, do that.

As with all my cupcakes, I used Iced Jems Baking Cups. I love these cups because they make the perfect sized cupcakes. They come in so many different colours and designs they are amazing!

Trick or Treat Cupcakes

Spiders Web Cake

Witches Brew Tart

I start by creaming together the butter and sugar until it was lovely and pale and fluffy. Next, I added in the remaining ingredients and mixed until they are combined.

If you just want vanilla cupcakes stop here and pop them into your cupcake cases. If you want the marbled effect then follow the next instructions. I used the same three colours as I did in my Spiders Web Cake, purple, green and orange. I wasn’t sure what other colours were halloweeny if you can think of any let me know!

How Do I Colour my Cake Batter?

To colour the cake batter I split the cupcake mixture into three separate bowls and dyed them each a different colour.

To colour the cupcake batter I used Pro Gel Green, Purple and Orange. I love this brand of food colouring because you really don’t need to use a lot to get a super-effective colour.

I would recommend using a gel-based food colouring as you really don’t need to a lot to get a great colour also it doesn’t leave a weird after taste like some of the supermarket own-brand food colourings.

Once I am happy with the colour I then spoon a teaspoon of each colour into the bottom of the baking cups. Then with any leftover cake batter, I spoon it on top. It doesn’t need to be neat at this point and don’t worry if there are gaps in between each colour.

Finally using either a cake skewer swirl the colours. You don’t want to mix them so that they turn into a horrible brown colour just enough to swirl the colours into one and other. It is the exact same technique I used when making these Rainbow Cupcakes as a Guest Post for Short Girl Walking.

How Do I Know When My Ghost Cupcakes Are Baked?

You want to bake these in the oven until they are golden brown or springy to touch. You can also insert a cake skewer into the centre of them, if it comes out clean then they are ready. If there is still some mixture on the end then they are not cooked. Pop them back into the oven for 3-4 minutes, and check them again repeat until the cupcakes are completely cooked.

Italian Meringue Ghosts

It took me a while to decide what to make the ghosts with. I wanted to use butter cream but I seem to use that on all my bakes so thought that meringue was a bit different.

This can be a bit difficult if you have never made it before but trust me it is so worth the faff.

You need to use a super clean bowl and whisk for the egg whites. Your egg whites also cannot have any yolk in it. If it does your meringue will just not work.

You want to have your egg whites in a bowl ready to start whisking. In a pot, you want to make a sugar syrup which is made with caster sugar and water.

How Do I Make The Sugar Syrup?

To make the sugar syrup you need to heat the mixture up to 120C, you don’t need me to tell you that is very very hot! Whilst your mixture is heating up start to whisk your egg whites. You need it to be thick peaks.

With your mixer on a slow speed slowly add the sugar syrup mixture to the bowl. You want the mixture to run down the side of the bowl you don’t want it to touch the whisk or otherwise it will splash back and I really don’t want you to burn yourself.

Leave the meringue to mix until the bowl has completely cooled to room temperature. While it is mixing the sugar syrup is cooking the egg whites.

The hardest part is making sure that your egg whites are whipped enough and you have added all your sugar in time for the sugar syrup hitting 120C.

The easiest way to keep an eye on the temperature is to use a sugar thermometer.

I then added the meringue mixture to my piping bag and I used a large round piping tip to pipe the ghosts on top of my cake. I used some black sprinkles for the eyes but you could also use black food colouring and gently paint the eyes on.

Equipment

Food Colouring

Ingredients

Unsalted Butter – n the cupcake batter, you can use either unsalted butter or Stork.

Caster Sugar – The caster sugar in this recipe adds to the sweetness of your cupcakes

Self-Raising Flour – The self-raising flour gives the cupcake its strength and holds all of the cake together.

Eggs – I use 1 egg for every 50g of mixture I use. So I use 145g of unsalted butter, sugar and self-raising flour so I would then use 3 eggs in the mixture. The eggs in this recipe help to add structure to the cakes. It also helps bind the cupcakes mixture together.

Baking Powder – I used Dr Oetker baking powder. The baking powder releases Carbon Dioxide gas into the batter, causing bubbles which help the cake to rise.

Vanilla Extract – I used Neilson Massey Vanilla Extract in these cupcakes

Food Colouring – I used Pro Gel Food Colouring. I love the gel colours and would recommend using them. As I said above I find they give a much better colour than liquid food colouring and they don’t have the funny aftertaste either.

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5 from 5 votes