It’s time to get in the Halloween spirit and whip up some spooky carrot cake cupcakes for some lucky ‘trick or treaters’!! The ‘two-tone’ icing technique used in this recipe can be used for different occasions, think green and red for Christmas or different shades of pink for Valentine’s Day. This effect is really easy to achieve and taste delicious. I have used our carrot cake mix for these cupcakes, as the orange works well with this theme and they taste delicious!

Ingredients:


Cupcake Ingredients
– 1 x Boutique Bake Carrot Cake Mix
– 2 Carrots
– 125ml oil
– 2 eggs

Vanilla Buttercream Icing
– 210g butter
– 420g icing sugar
– 2-3 tbsp of milk
– 2 tsp of vanilla extract
– Food colouring – orange & black

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/160 fan. Line a muffin/cupcake tray with 12 muffin cases.
2. Pour carrot cake mix into a large bowl, crack in 2 eggs, pour in 125ml of sunflower oil and finally add in 200g of grated carrots. Mix with spoon until well combined.
3. Evenly divide out your mix between the 12 muffin cases. Place in oven for 20 mins until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean, then leave to cool.
4. To make the buttercream icing, beat the butter and icing sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add in 2 tablespoons of milk and the vanilla, beating until the mixture is creamy and smooth
5. Divide your icing into two halves and place in two separate bowls. Place a few drops of orange food colouring into one, and place some black food colouring in the other, and mix both well
6. Place an icing nozzle inside an icing bag. Fill one side of your icing bag with the orange buttercream icing and the other side with the black/grey buttercream. Twist your piping bag, so the icing is pushed down towards the nozzle, now it’s time to ice!
7. Starting from the edge of your cupcake, make anti-clockwise swirls of icing towards the centre and then pull sharply away, upwards from the cupcake to form a nice swirl-shape. Ice all 12 cupcakes and then enjoy!

Boutique Bake is a range of gourmet baking mixes, created using only the finest ingredients and without any nasty added extras. They are ideal for bakers of all abilities who are short on time but do not want to compromise on quality. Boutique Bake started in a small cottage in Donnybrook, Co. Dublin and the award-winning range includes 5 products: Belgian Choc Brownie Mix – ‘The Gooey One’, Lemon Drizzle Cake Mix – ‘The Zingy One’, Carrot Cake Mix – ‘The Cheeky One’, Brown Bread Mix – ‘The Rustic One’ and Flapjack Mix – ‘The Chewy One’.