Gruesomely Ghoulish Pumpkin Cupcakes

About this recipe

If you’re carving a pumpkin this Halloween, this is a great way of using up the flesh in a tasty and healthy recipe that’s perfect for kids to help with. Once you’ve scooped out the seeds and fibre, you should be able to carefully cut out enough flesh with a vegetable knife and keep the pumpkin shell for carving. You can grate the flesh, or use a food processor to do it in seconds.

Ingredients

175g muscovado sugar

175g sunflower oil

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

200g self raising flour

200g grated pumpkin

100g sultanas or raisins

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Zest of 1 orange

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

For the icing:

200g soft cream cheese

100g icing sugar

Pack of Liquorice Allsorts, to decorate

Makes 12 – 14, depending on the size of paper case you use.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180c. Get a muffin tray ready by lining it with the cases.

Put the oil, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence into a big bowl and beat together with a whisk.

Throw in the rest of the ingredients and stir well. You’ll have a lovely runny, gooey mixture – aprons recommended!

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, dividing evenly. Put into the oven on a centre shelf and bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until a skewer stuck into the middle comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack and cool.

For the icing:

Put the cream cheese into a bowl and add the icing sugar, sifting as you go. Beat together until smooth – this may go a little runny, but will set slightly after a few minutes. You can also add food colouring if you want to turn your ghosts into green monsters! Or keep it natural by adding pureed carrot to the icing to give you an orange colour. Spread onto the cakes.

To make the eyes and mouths, cut the Liquorice Allsorts into pieces with a sharp knife – if you give them a bowl of assorted bits, kids can have great fun creating different scary faces.

If you like this recipe, check out more on the Dukan site.