Easy Halloween Cupcakes

Jump to Recipe

Planning a fun festive Halloween party in all its goulish glory?? Along with spooktacular costumes and carving Jack O’ Lanterns, prepping for trick or treating and all that excitement?

Then these fun and festive Halloween Cupcakes, made mostly with store cupboard ingredients (so no trip to the store needed) are gong to be right up your alley.

These RIP Cupcakes are simple to make and big on fun and the perfect tasty bewitching treats for your dessert table.

And if you like Halloween treats, then check out this Halloween Popcorn, colorful Halloween Donuts, these healthier Grape Caterpillar Skewers,

This really is is an easy cupcake recipe and little monsters love baking these. Combine all of the ingredients together in a single bowl (less dishes to wash up -yaye!). And since my mini chefs are chocolate lovers, we decided to bake up these chocolate cupcakes. Sooooo good!

You can switch up the flavors and colors of frosting to create all sorts of different Halloween themes. Use the same ingredients in this recipe to turn your Halloween cupcakes into black cats and mummies. Or how about baking up some Red Velvet Vampires? There are so many options for coming up with truly spooktacular creations.

Ready to learn how to make these frighteningly cute Halloween Cupcakes? Gather up your ingredients, and let me show you….

How To Make Halloween Cupcakes

Get complete ingredients list and instructions from the recipe card below.

Bake the Cupcakes:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C and line a cupcake baking pan with cupcake liners.
• Add flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt to a large bowl and mix well.
• Add oil, milk, and vanilla extract to the dry mixture and combine. Then add the egg, and mix until well incorporated.
• Using a cookie scoop or spoon, add the batter to the liners, filling three-fourths of the way. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and let the cupcakes cool for 5 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make The Frosting and Decorating the Cupcakes:

1. In a bowl of a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream together the butter and vanilla extract until light and creamy. Add sugar in batches and beat until you get a smooth and fluffy consistency (5-6 minutes).
2. Remove three-quarters of the frosting and add green gel food color to it, mixing to combine. Keep the remaining frosting white.
3. Gently separate Oreos in half and scrape off the center filling so that you have 2 cookies from each Oreo.
4. Put the open star icing tip into the piping bag and fill it with prepared green-colored icing. Pipe green frosting onto each of the cupcakes.
5. Use the white frosting to write R.I.P on the Oreos and press them gently on the frosted cupcakes.

Secret tip moment here. Or you can…………

Use Store Bought Cupcakes to Make Halloween Cupcakes

But not to worry if you’re short on time or just don’t feel up to baking. Pick up some ready-made cupcake cakes and icing, and then have fun getting into the Halloween spirit decorating with the kids. 

Makes life much easier and even less cleaning up to do. Feel free to grab any flavor of cupcake that you like, it does not have to be just chocolate. We have used vanilla cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes, apple cupcakes, and apple pie cupcakes with much success.

P.S. You can also use mini cupcakes. P.P.S. You can also use a boxed mix.

Recipe Tips

• Make sure your cupcakes are cooled completely before you add the icing. Set them on cooling racks or even pop them in the fridge to speed up the process.
• Put a damp paper towel over your bowls of icing to prevent a crust from forming.
• Add a small amount of egg white to your icing mixture to make it firmer and easier to work with.
• Use toothpicks to draw details with icing or to position your decorations.
• Adjust the intensity of the colors till you get desired bright shade in the frosting.
• You can beat in 1-2 tablespoons of fresh cream in the frosting if it’s too thick.

Delicious Variations

You can switch up the frosting flavors and colors to create all sorts of different Halloween themes.

• Use the same ingredients in this recipe to turn your Halloween cupcakes into black cats and mummies.
• Add candy eyes, etc. to make monster cupcakes.
• Or how about baking up some Red Velvet Vampires?
• Add some funky hats to make witch cupcakes.
• Add some webs and spiders to make spider cupcakes.

There really are sooooooo many options for coming up with truly spooktacular creations.

Storage

• These RIP Cupcakes will stay fresh for 2-3 days when stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
• You can also store the extra frosting in the fridge for 4-5 days; allow it to come to room temperature before using it again. (Don’t decorate with Oreos if you’re planning on storing these cupcakes, as the cookies will turn soggy)

How To Frost Halloween Cupcakes

I have given you some frosting ideas using a simple buttercream frosting which can be homemade following this recipe, or using a store-bought frosting.

Another easy option is to pour melted white chocolate chips, melted chocolate, or Nutella over the cupcakes.

More Fun and Festive Halloween Recipes

• Halloween Zombie Fingers
• Monster Halloween Marshmallow Pops
• Pumpkin Salted Caramels

Thank you for reading my Halloween Cupcakes recipe post. And please come visit again as I continue to slice, dice and dream up affordable Air Fryer recipes, Instant Pot Recipes, Southern Recipes and more. Thanks for supporting Recipes from a Pantry, food blog.

Get The Halloween Cupcakes Recipe: