Halloween Confetti Cupcakes

A little bit of color goes a long when when it comes to holiday baking, and that is true no matter what holiday you’re baking for. Pastel colors tend to make you think of Easter. Red and green tend to make you think of Christmas. And black and orange will always make you think of Halloween. It is easy to take your favorite vanilla or chocolate cup cake recipe and dress it up for the holiday by using colored cupcake wrappers or, as I did in this case, throwing a handful of colorful, holiday-appropriate sprinkles right into the batter.

These Halloween Confetti Cupcakes have splashes of orange and green throughout the batter and are baked in black and orange cupcake wrappers to transform what would otherwise be a simple vanilla cupcake – and one of my go-to cupcake recipes – into a treat worthy of a Halloween celebration. Since I wanted a dessert that offered both a trick and a treat, I also topped these off with some scary severed finger cake toppers. Every one of these things seems so simple – yet when they all come together in one delicious cupcake, they seem just as Halloween-appropriate as other, more elaborately-decorated, treats. They’re a lot of fun to make, but they definitely won’t take you all night.

The cupcakes are moist and fluffy, with a good vanilla flavor and a hint of tang from the buttermilk in the batter. They’re very tender, but they’re sturdy enough to support all those colorful sprinkles and keep them from clumping together during baking. Be sure to add the sprinkles just before dividing the batter into muffin cups, so the colors won’t run together. Black, orange, green and purple are all great Halloween colors to work with, but make sure you are using jimmies (the long, skinny sprinkles) for the best results in your cupcakes. I toppped these with vanilla buttercream, though you can use any flavor you like as ling as you get creative with your toppings. If you don’t have severed fingers on hand, you can always sprinkle on more sprinkles.

Halloween Confetti Cupcakes
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ tsp almond extract
1 cup buttermilk
2-3 tbsp black, orange, purple and/or green jimmies

Preheat oven to 350F. Place liners in a 12 cup muffin tin.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it looks creamy. Beat in the egg and the vanilla and almond extracts until mixture is smooth.
Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined. Add buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and stir until all ingredients are mixed in. Stir in colored sprinkles.
Divide batter evenly into muffin cups.
Bake for 18-20 minutes at 350F, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Let cupcakes cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the muffin pan. Cool completely before frosting.

Makes 12 cupcakes