It may not be Halloween yet, but surely, it is always the perfect time to eat a spider cupcake!

These tasty treats are incredibly chocolatey and look super cute on your Halloween table or given to trick-or-treaters.

For the chocolate cupcakes:

What you need:

• 110g (4oz) butter
• 110g (4oz) caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 85g (3oz) self-raising flour
• 4 tsp cocoa powder

What to do:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar, and add the eggs.
2. Sift the dry ingredients and fold them in.
3. Pour the mixture into the cake cases.
4. Bake for 15-17 minutes at 180° C/350° F/Gas 4

For the Decoration:

What you need:

• chocolate butter icing
• candy eyes (or you could use chocolate drops)
• large chocolate buttons
• liquorice sticks/ chocolate fingers for the legs

What You Do:

Ice the cupcakes. I used a star-shaped piping nozzle to give it a good finish. This doesn’t matter much as most of the cake will be covered.

Add a circular-shaped sweet to the centre.

Cut your candy into 8 pieces. I found some long, fizzy sweets at the corner shop. They were brown on the outside and had a light coating of sugar, which worked perfectly. If I couldn’t find anything else, I was planning on using liquorice and cutting that up or chocolate fingers.

Add two eyes. I had some candy eyeballs, which you can buy from eBay or cake decorating shops. These are mainly used for cake pops and give a really good finishing touch to a cake. If you can’t get them, chocolate drops or a small round sweet like M&M’s are good.

Molly enjoyed decorating the cakes to look like spiders. As she is five she could do this herself. The twins are only two so I just got them to cover their cakes with icing and add some sprinkles. They still looked cute with a little Halloween sign in the top.

Don’t forget to check out the other Halloween posts in the European blogger Halloween Blog Hop:

If you like this idea, then make sure you follow me on Pinterest. I have a board dedicated to fun Halloween and Autumn ideas.