Owl About Cupcakes

 It's October, which means I can be as creepy and weird as I want and it's just considered festive, unlike the rest of the year when my dark sense of humor and love of the color black are totally lost on most. After suffering through 2020, it's possible to be dead inside but still really excited about something, and for me, nothing brings greater joy than Halloween baking. Ghouls just wanna have fun, after all. I decided I wanted to make some cupcakes that were fun Halloween-y and not flat out creepy. You know, starting by gingerly getting my feet wet (or webbed?), but don't worry, your Hallow-queen has some tricks up her sleeve later this month. For now, take a look at these adorable black forest cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting!

You could say I'm owl about how cute these are.

Aren't these an absolute hoot? I am trying so. hard. to reel in the terrible puns, but these just bring me so much happiness. They are cute but also slightly spooky, and a dozen owls make up my parliament. The other dozen cupcakes were supposed to be bats, but Oreo's prove to be extremely hard to separate while retaining pretty cream-side canvases, so before I was driven, well, completely batty by trying and failing at getting Oreos to play nice, I busted into my spooky sprinkle collection (it is large) and did simple swirls topped with ghosts and skulls. I love how they all turned out, and I assume these would be easy to make as a family with the kids for a fun treat. I mean, I have the same willpower around Reese's and Oreo's as a six year old, and I only ate a third of my body weight in candy while making these. Good thing they're VERY low cal (the owls are 191 calories each; the swirls are only 118 calories each). I swear, all treats, no tricks, with this recipe...these are a rich devil's food cake filled with sweet cherries and finished with a tart chocolate cream cheese frosting. They are to die for *cue evil laughter.*

But unlike most evil villains, I have no long, convoluted plan. These are SO easy to make.

For the black forest cupcakes, you'll need:

• 1 box of sugar free devil's food cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1 1/4 cup of fat free milk
• 1 1/4 cup of lite cherry pie filling (about half a can)

Preheat your oven to 325 and line two muffin tins with festive Halloween cupcake liners (not optional). Dump the cake mix, whites, applesauce, and milk in a stand mixer, and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Once well mixed, use a large cookie scoop to plop one and a half spoonfuls into each cupcake liner. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the center clean, then still in the tin, place on the counter for 5 minutes before removing to completely cool on a cooling rack. 

Your house will smell sinfully delicious.

You want to let these get pretty cool before coring and adding the cherries, so plop into the fridge for a half hour to speed things up. A speedy spooky timeline is a real must for busy witches like me.

Now, get ready to core!

Take a large frosting tip (I used a 1M), and gently press into the center of each cupcake, twisting until you get about 75% of the tip into the center of the cupcake. Remove, and you should have a decent hole for burying the bodies for the cherry filling.

They do look a little sinister and murdery this way. 10/10 would haunt.

I used a 1/2 TBS to scoop cherries and plop into the center of each cupcake. They should hold about 3-4 cherries each. Once done, you can try to put the cupcake cores back in, save for cakepops, or eat by the handful (you'll never guess which one I chose...). Place your cupcakes into the fridge so the filling can firm up while you make your frosting.

This recipe is a game changer.

Chocolate cream cheese frosting might not be the traditional black forest cake topper, but this just works on so many levels. Super easy to throw together (more time for eating cupcake core remnants), all you need is:

• 1/2 cup of reduced fat butter at room temp
• 8 ounces of reduced fat cream cheese at room temp
• 4 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit sweeteneer
• 1/2 cup of cocoa (dark cocoa would probably also be fang-tastic)
• 1 TBS of vanilla extract
• If needed, 1 TBS of skim milk to thin out for decorating
• Brown gel dye (optional)
  

Whip the butter and cream cheese together for 3 minutes until fluffy. Add in half of the monkfruit sweetener and the vanilla, blending well. Add in the cocoa, the rest of the sweetener, and milk if you're piping and not just slathering these on top of the cupcakes. I also added several drops of brown gel dye to get the owls a little closer in color to the Oreo's. Mix well, but be careful not to over mix or it will thin out the cream cheese frosting. If this happens, just pop it into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm back up before frosting.

Thanks to this recipe, I now have enough candy to build a house in the woods with to lure children to their impending doom.

To make the owls, you will need Reese's pieces or M&M's, Oreo mini, and regular Oreo's.

Each owl will need the cream side of 2 Oreo's, two Reese's of the same color for eyes, one orange Reese's for a nose, and 1 side of a mini Oreo for eyebrows? Eyebrow feathers? You know what I mean.

Those eyes look as confused as I am right now.

Put the Reese's gently on the cream side of each Oreo, then snap a mini Oreo in half, and grab those cupcakes from the fridge. I just slathered on a layer of chocolate frosting on top of each cupcake, then placed the eyes about in the middle of the cupcake:

It is the angriest bird. Poor thing has resting owl face.

Drop the orange Reese's a little below the eyes for a beak, and position the mini Oreo's above the eyes to form what we're now calling eyebrow feathers. Let's just say how you position these can make the owl look like "Awww" or "Oh God, it wants to kill me." You could call it here, but I loaded up a piping bag with a #352 leaf tip and piped little feathers. To do this, you want to hold the bag so the piping tip is sideways, and then gently press a little frosting out of the bag while lifting back toward you to form feathers:

Yep, this bird is trying to steal my soul with its rage.

Repeat for as many cupcakes as you'd like, and then store them in the fridge to firm up for an hour before eating. The frosting will crust up a bit, so your owl's feathers will look more defined.

Let's take a look at a finished owl with eyes that say, "I would gladly tell you how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop," and not "I will haunt your every dream."

Look at his ADORABLE LITTLE OWL FACE. For the remaining dozen cupcakes, I used a piping bag fitted with a 1M tip to create a traditional cupcake swirl before topping with Spooky Sprinkles (TM).

Ghosts & Bones (sounds like the next Mumford and Son's album title) for everyone!

I had so much skele-fun putting these last dozen together. Were there sprinkles everywhere? Yes. Any regrets? No. This is why I have dogs to clean my floors.

This owl is also giving me puppy dog eyes.

Try as I might, most of my owls ended up being completely evil.

But at least there's a cherry on topish.

Delicious chocolate cupcake paired with cherry filling? There's a reason chocolate-covered cherries are a thing, and black forest cupcakes remind you exactly why. These aren't too rich or too sweet thanks to the chocolate cream cheese frosting offering a little tang to take the edge off the cherries. Everything is firing on all cylinders in this recipe, so I feel like an evil genius for concocting my first of many Spooktober bakes! It's always nice to get to share my bakes with family and friends, and these are being eaten with much fervor while my parents are visiting this weekend...I froze half to send on my parent's journey up to my brother's house for my niece and nephew, but I can hear those owls screeching my name from the other room, so I better learn to practice some willpower lest I become "the witchy aunt who literally takes candy from children." Never fear, I am just getting started...this blog will be my regular haunt all month long. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

I can feel it in my bones--gonna be a great month for baking.