Juliet Sear's spook-tacular Halloween treats
Juliet Sear is here with some spook-tacular treats to keep your little monsters entertained this half term. From creepy cupcakes to pumpkin platters and terrifyingly tasty biscuits, she’s got your Halloween covered.
Vampire cupcakes
Makes: 12-14
Ingredients:
For the cupbakes:
200g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
4 medium free range eggs
200g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
For the frosting:
300g unsalted butter, soft
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
600g icing sugar, sifted
150g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
Approx 150g seedless strawberry jam
Red food colouring to tint
Method:
1. Heat the oven to 170C fan/ gas 3.
2. Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl or a stand mixer until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well until smooth.
3. Dry whisk the flour, baking powder and salt and fold in slowly until just combined.
4. Divide the mixture equally into cupcake tins lined with baking cases. Bake these for 15-18 mins or until risen, golden and cooked through. Leave to cool.
5. To make the butter cream, add the butter and vanilla to a mixer or a bowl, beat on high speed, about 1 min, until creamy & smooth.
6. Gradually add icing sugar, beating each addition slowly. Add cream cheese until combined and smooth.
7. Once the cakes are cool, use an apple corer, spoon or knife to dig out a little hole in the cupcake, saving the cake to plug it back in.
8. Add the jam with a spoon or piping bag then top with part of the removed cake.
9. Put the buttercream into a piping bag with a round nozzle. Pipe a neat swirl on the top of each cake. Let this set before using a straw to make bite marks in the frosting and add the drizzle blood with the jam for the vampire blood.
Spider Cookies
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
150g unrefined golden caster sugar
200g soft butter
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 medium free range egg
350g plain flour
Chocolate ganache or nutella to fill
12 lindor balls or chocolate malteser
1 packet of apple laces
Edible eyes
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190c fan and line a baking tray.
2. Mix the sugar, soft butter and vanilla bean paste in a mixer until fluffy.
3. Add the egg and mix till combined
4. Mix in the plain flour.
5. Form a dough then make little balls of dough, roughly the size of a walnut and place on a lined baking sheet and press indentations with your thumb in the middle of each one.
6. Place into the pre-heated oven and bake for around 8-10 minutes until golden brown.
7. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. Decorate by spreading a little chocolate spread into the dent of the cookie, adding knotted sweet laces to make the spider's legs and pushing a chocolate ball into the centre.
9. Use chocolate spread to attach edible eyes and serve on a halloween platter