SpOoKy!!

With Halloween just around the corner, it's time for some fun, SpOoKy Halloween desserts!

First up- the most fun and easiest of all. Eyeball cupcakes! These were a huge hit in my oldest son's class at the end of the third grade. His teacher did a ton of fun things for the last 2 weeks of school and that included having parents come in and teach the class how to do something, make something, whatever they wanted to teach in a 30 minute time frame. So of course he wanted me to teach them how to draw sharks (he loves sharks) and I said there was not enough time in the day to teach 18 children how to draw a shark! So instead we put our heads together and thought this would be a quick, easy and fun thing to do, and it left everyone with a special treat to enjoy and remember this experience.

All you need for these cupcakes are a box of your favorite flavored cake mix, or if you make your own, even better. You need white frosting - any store bought is great, or you make your own again. Then you will want to buy yourself a bag of gummy lifesavers, mini m&m's and red decorating gel (all items you can get at any grocery store.) Once you make your cupcakes (try to make sure you fill your cups enough so that they come just above the top when they rise to give the round top effect), frost them and then get prepared to decorate. First you take your red gel and make squiggly lines from the center of the cupcake to the end just like you see in the photo. Take your mini m&m and stick it in the middle of your lifesaver and place the lifesaver right in the middle of the cupcake. Ta-da! You're all done.

As I said above, you can use whatever flavor cake mix you like. I used red velvet cupcakes when I made these for DJ's class to give it the "bloody" effect when they were eating them. This went over really well with the kids and he still gets compliments on these cupcakes to this day from his friends. You can even put a yummy filling on the inside of your cupcakes. Whatever you like to do with your cupcakes. If you don't know how to put filling in here's an easy tip. Spoon whatever filling you want into a small zip lock baggie. Cut the tip of your baggie and before frosting your cupcakes, carefully place the tip you just cut open into the center of your cupcake poking through just a little and squeeze a little bit out. You will know when you have too much - it will start coming up to the top of the cupcake. Very easy and will make if you color your leftover frosting red and use that, it will look even more bloody!