These cupcakes use pumpkin or butternut squash, sunflower oil, and cinnamon, giving a sweet, spicy flavour. The mixture looked very runny, and my mum was convinced they wouldn't cook properly, so I hastily added a bit more flour. For once I was the one to say 'I told you so'...as they cooked well, and were a nice golden-brown.
However, when it came to icing them the cakes were quite moist and the icing didn't stick too well, so I iced some vanilla cupcakes that I had made instead. The spider-web icing is definitly the trickiest part. First make some white icing (or you can use melted white chocolate), make sure it is quite thick, and cover each cupcake. Once you have iced all of the cakes, melt 25-50g of milk or dark chocolate. Spoon the chocolate into an icing bag. Pipe a dot of chocolate in the centre of each cake, and draw 2 or 3 concentric circles around the outside. Next take a cocktail stick or skewer and draw a line from the central dot to the outside edge of the cake, and repeat about 8 times around the cake to create the spider-web effect.
And for a bit of Halloween fear have a look at my scary pumpkins...
