Easy Halloween Cupcakes Decorating Idea

I made these easy Halloween cupcakes a while ago. They were decorated using royal icing and were pretty easy to put together.

A cupcake decorated with an orange Halloween pumpkin design

The first ones are a batch of Halloween cupcakes with spiders on them. The second one was with a Halloween pumpkin design.

Both designs were created using royal icing and fondant. I use quite a bit of royal icing in my piping work on cakes and that is simply because I find it easier to work with than buttercream due to the weather here. I live in Malaysia and the temperatures are ever so unforgiving for buttercream.

Royal icing sets nice and hard and I don’t have to worry about having to work in an air-conditioned room or keep running to the fridge every now and then to keep my decorations from getting too soft in the heat.

Having said that, you can always use buttercream to create these easy Halloween cupcakes if you wish so!

How to Make Easy Halloween Cupcakes

The Inspiration: Spider Halloween Cupcakes

The inspiration for these cupcakes came from this Halloween spider cake. The cake theme was spider and the colors were literally black and white so I used the same concept on these cupcakes.

Here's what you need to make these easy Halloween spider cupcakes

Cupcakes - I baked these using my chocolate cake recipe. Instead of pouring the batter into a cake pan, I divided it into cupcake casings.
Fondant - For this project, I used fondant in 2 colors i.e. black and white. Both were Satin Ice fondant.
Buttercream - I used chocolate buttercream to crumb coat the cupcakes, before putting the fondant on.
Royal icing - this has to be in stiff, piping consistency.
Piping tip number 3
Disposable piping bags
Food color - I used a combination of black, green, red and brown to achieve the black tint for my royal icing. All colors were from Wilton.
Round scalloped cutter

Assembling the spider Halloween cupcakes together:

Easy Halloween Spider Cupcakes Design

The cupcakes were baked in silver cupcake liners. Once baked and cooled, I covered them with a thin layer of chocolate buttercream. The purpose was to make sure the fondant cut-outs I was going to cover the cupcakes with adhere to the cupcakes.

Next, I rolled some fondant thin (about ⅛ inch thickness). Using my round scalloped cutter, I cut fondant circles, some in white and the others in black. And then attached them to the cupcakes.

Next, I filled 2 piping bags fitted with Wilton round tip #3. One bag was filled with black royal icing and the other one with white royal icing.

I used the royal icing to pipe the spiders on the cupcakes, free hand. For the white fondant covered cupcakes, I used black royal icing to pipe the spiders, vice versa.

To pipe the spiders, I started with a small circle of icing in the center of the cupcakes for the spiders' bodies. And then I piped the legs, starting from the shortest pair to the longest pair. For the eyes, I piped tiny dots of royal icing in the contrasting color.

These spiders were piped freehand. There was no sketching or markings on the cupcakes before piping. That is why you see that the spiders are all in different positions and sizes (the legs, especially), which I thought was not too bad.

The Inspiration: Halloween Pumpkin

Easy Halloween Cupcakes with an Evil Pumpkin Design

Here's what you need to make these easy Halloween cupcakes:

Cupcakes - These were baked using my butter pound cake recipe. I baked them in silver cupcake liners.
Buttercream - Buttercream was used as a crumb coat for the cupcakes before covering them with fondant.
Fondant - I used Satin Ice white fondant for these Halloween cupcakes.
Piping tip number 3 - I used this tip to pipe the Halloween pumpkin as well as the black scalloped border.
Royal icing - The Halloween pumpkin and the black border on the cupcakes were piped in royal icing.
Food color - I used Wilton orange food color for the Halloween pumpkin. For the black, I used a combination of black, brown, red and green.
Disposable piping bags
Round scalloped cutter

Assembling the Halloween pumpkin cupcakes:

I started with the cupcakes first. I baked them in silver casings. Once they were baked and completely cooled down, I leveled the tops and covered them with a thin layer of buttercream.

Next, I rolled the white fondant thin (about ⅛ inch thick). Using my round scalloped cutters, I cut out enough fondant circles to cover all my cupcakes. The buttercream crumb coat helped to hold these fondant pieces well on the cupcakes.

Piping the Halloween Pumpkins

I started the decorating work with the Halloween pumpkins. I piped these with orange-tinted royal icing, beginning with an outline using piping tip number 3. And then I went on fill it up the outlines. The filling work was also done using the same piping tip number 3. Since the royal icing was of a stiff consistency, the piping lines remained obvious on the pumpkin. This was intentional, to add texture to the pumpkins.

For the Halloween pumpkins' eyes and their crooked mouths, I used black and the same tip number 3. These were very simple to pipe on. The eyes were 2 slanted short lines, while the mouth was a zig-zag pattern.

Once the Halloween pumpkin was done, I did the black border. This was a simple curly design following the scalloped design of the fondant cut out.

Freehand piping

I created both the designs above with freehand piping, meaning, I did not use any templates or trace any outlines onto the cupcakes. If you are not very comfortable with freehand piping, you can actually draw the designs on a piece of paper. Once you are happy with the design, trace it onto a parchment paper. Turn the paper over and using royal icing, pipe the design out following the outlines on the paper. Let the designs set completely, and then carefully peel them off the paper and use them on your cupcakes.

I have used this technique for one of my cupcakes. You can see how I made these soccer ball toppers for the cupcakes here.

And that's it on my Halloween cupcakes! Happy decorating & Happy Halloween 🙂