One last minute Halloween tutorial before October is over! This time something sweet for parties, or if you just want to make something to celebrate at home, or they’re perfect for creepy birthday parties, super simple and very effective, I give you spider cupcakes!

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You will need

• Cupcakes – There are a million and one cupcake/sponge recipes online, so I’m going to assume everyone’s google-fu is up to scratch on this one My basic one is 1 egg=50g of everything else, so if you use 6 eggs, then 300g sugar, 300g of flour, 300g of butter, throw in some baking powder, a splash of milk and some vanilla extract and you have yourself a sponge mix.
• Glacé icing in your chosen colours – Glacé icing is just icing sugar, water and half a lemon or a few drops of vanilla extract to flavour. Pour a couple of cups of icing sugar into a bowl and slowly drizzle water in there, stirring it in, when you reach the consistency of wallpaper paste (if anyone else has a better comparison please let me know! That’s the best I could come up with!) then you’re good to go. I make up a big batch of white and then split and add colourings, you’ll normally have to add more icing sugar after the colour to regain the same consistency.
• Freezer bags for the icing
• Black gel icing – find this in the baking aisle in a tube.
• Something pointy – toothpick is great, or a sharpened chopstick

1. Spread your icing over the top of the cooled cupcake
2. Using a freezer bag with the corner snipped off add a black swirl to the top of your icing whilst it’s still wet
3. Take your toothpick and drag the icing outwards to create the web (not shown because it’s bloody hard to do that AND take a picture!) take care to just brush the surface of the icing.
4. Let the icing dry for a couple of hours
5. Add the spider, d raw four lines crossing each other to make up the legs, and blob some on top for the body – don’t do as my mum did and make all yours with six legs, get into an argument with your daughter about how many legs spiders have and demand she Googles it to prove her point. Sorry Mum, but an entomologist you are not!
6. Nom your super yummy and superb looking cakes!

Just a note, these are best made the day of your party (or when you want to eat them), or at the very earliest the night before, Glacé icing can crack sometimes, or goes a bit dewy when left too long. So for your Halloween cupcakes to be looking their best I wouldn’t have more than 24 hours between decorating and serving!