I know that I may get a lot of flack for saying this, but I am not a huge fan of Halloween. It’s not that I hate it or anything, it just doesn’t come anywhere close to Christmas in my mind. I did dress up this year (a “dress as your name” theme, I was Amy Winehouse!), but you won’t find a single Halloween decoration around my house. I much prefer to decorate for Fall in general and leave the decorations up for longer.

All of that being said, it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy baking for Halloween (or eating Halloween candy). I really struggled with what to make this year. Brownies? Blondies? Cake? Since cupcakes seem to be all the rage in the baking and blogging worlds I settled on those. But what kind? How to decorate them?? So many decisions!! The number 1 Google search sending people to the site has been ‘oreo cupcakes’, so that made my decision for me. The last oreo cupcakes I made were the hugely popular strawberry golden oreo cupcakes and I mixed pieces of the cookies into the batter, but this time I wanted to try placing an entire oreo at the bottom of the cupcake. Obviously I had to use the Halloween Oreos, plus make an oreo buttercream. I originally intended to use a chocolate cupcake, but when I went to make them I discovered I didn’t have any chocolate cake mix in the pantry (don’t you hate that!).  I still wanted to do something to make them a little more “Halloweeny” (is that a word?) so that’s when I decided to use the Nutter Butter cookies to make ghosts. I have never had good luck dipping things in chocolate, and my luck certainly continued. I dipped half of each Nutter Butter into vanilla flavored Candy Quick melting chocolate. For the most part it worked well but I can never seem to get everything smooth and perfect. The eyes of the ghosts are mini chocolate chips, which should be placed on the ghosts right after dipping, before the chocolate begins to harden.  They stood up in the Oreo buttercream nicely, and added a nice extra treat to the cupcakes. Enjoy!

Halloween Oreo Cupcakes
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1 box yellow (or chocolate) cake mix
Ingredients listed on box + 1 extra egg
24 Halloween oreos
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
5 Tbsp milk
7 regular oreos
12 Nutter Butter cookies
1 package vanilla Candy Quick for melting (or any other white chocolate of choice)
72 mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together cake mix, water, oil and eggs. Place a Halloween Oreo into the bottom of each cupcake liner (18-24 depending on how big you plan on making each cupcake). Pour batter over oreos, filling each liner approximately 2/3 full. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Meanwhile, in a medium sized bowl cream together butter and vanilla. Add powdered sugar in one cup increments, then add milk to thin. Crush the 7 oreos (more or less depending on your taste) in a food processor, then mix into buttercream. Frost cupcakes when cool.

To make ghosts, melt Candy Quick in microwave for one minute. Remove from microwave and stir until smooth. Cut Nutter Butter cookies in half and dip each into the chocolate. Place on parchment paper to set. Immediately place 3 mini chocolate chips onto each cookie to form eyes and nose. Once set place a “ghost” on top of each cupcake.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

~I’m sharing this recipe over at Delicious Dishes, Cupcake Tuesday and All Halloween Bash~