Mummy Cupcakes

When witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers ’tis near Halloween.

The time of year is drawing near when we don a costume and become someone (or something) else for a day. Ghosts and witches…bats and vampires…monsters and mummies! It’s almost Halloween! We hauled our Halloween storage totes out of the garage a couple of weeks ago, and our little nugget spent an entire weekend afternoon happily donning costume after costume. To say that she’s excited about the upcoming holiday would be an understatement. She’s been itching to be a mermaid for months! With our costumes planned and our spooky outdoor decorations in place, there was only one thing left to do…make Mummy Cupcakes!

I made these super simple (yet completely adorable) mummy cupcakes several years ago for a Halloween pot-luck at work. Since they were such a smashing success then, I knew that our little nugget would love them now. She loves to don her apron and help us out in the kitchen, and this is a recipe that she executed every step of the way. She placed all of the cupcake liners into the cupcake tins, added all of the ingredients to our mixing bowl, and used the beaters to mix it all up (with assistance and adult supervision).

Her favorite task involved carefully selecting a pair of M&M eyes for each mummy. She would help squeeze the icing onto each cupcake, and then she would place two matching M&M eyeballs on each one. When the mummies were complete, she just sat back and grinned. “Mommy, these cupcakes are so silly!”

Silly or not…nothing could stop her from biting right into the finished product. Her reaction? A big thumbs up!

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake Mix (We used Betty Crocker’s Super Moist Devil’s Food Cake Mix)
1-1/4 Cups Water
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
Vanilla Icing (We used Betty Crocker’s Rich & Creamy Vanilla)
M&M’s
Cake Decorating Bag with Flat Decorating Tip
Cupcake Liners (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or non-stick pans). Fill cupcake tins with cupcake liners (or spray with non-stick cooking spray) and set aside.
Combine the cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large bowl. Mix on medium speed for approximately 2 minutes, scrapping down the sides when necessary.
Fill each cupcake liner approximately 3/4 full.
Bake for 14-19 minutes. The cupcakes are done if you gently press on the tops and they spring right back. You can also stick a toothpick through the center…if it comes out clean, they are done.
Remove the cupcakes from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack, to cool completely.
Once the cupcakes are cool, spoon the vanilla frosting into a cake decorating bag, fitted with a flat decorating tip. The easiest and cleanest way I’ve found to do this, is to twist the end of the bag with the decorating tip a few times, fold it back and place the bag into a drinking glass. Fold the top of the decorating bag down around the glass. Spoon the frosting in, gather up the edges of the bag and twist them together. I like to place a chip clip around the top twist, to keep everything secure.
Pipe the frosting onto the tops of the cupcakes in a cross-hatch or “x” pattern, to create the mummy effect.
Place two M&M eyes on each mummy. Ta Da!

This recipe yields approximately 24-26 cupcakes.

I love simple and fun recipes that I can make with my daughter. We spend quality time together doing something that we both enjoy…we make delicious treats…and we find fun ways to learn and practice certain skills. While we prepared these scrumptious mummy cupcakes, we practiced our color-sorting and counting skills, and we learned what it means to make a pair.