Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes with Two-Tone Frosting!
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Those Halloween sprinkles that you have in your pantry are going to get put to good use when you make these bright and colorful Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes! They’re so easy to make using a box of cake mix and are double-frosted for extra cupcake goodness!
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Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes
The full ingredients list and instructions are found in the printable recipe card at the end of this post. I highly recommend reading the blog post all the way through so that you don’t miss any tips or substitution suggestions and to ensure that you have all the ingredients and equipment required as well as understand the steps and timings involved.
Cupcake sprinkle lovers unite! These Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes are so delightfully Halloweeny and really simple and fun to make.
If you stash sprinkles in your pantry like a squirrel (like I do!), then it’s time to put the Halloween ones to good use in these cute cupcakes!
Just mix ’em up and use ’em to decorate these cupcakes for Halloween. And if you don’t have any sprinkles, they’re easy to buy online.
These cupcakes are double-frosted with a layer of frosting covered in sprinkles on top of the cake, followed by a swirl of two-color frosting on top. How awesome does that look?
Ingredients & Equipment Used In This Recipe
You may have some of the ingredients for this recipe in your kitchen already – the full list with measurements is found in the recipe card.
For your convenience, any specialized or notable ingredients and equipment needed for this recipe have been listed below and linked to Amazon if available online.
This recipe uses American cups. They’re a handy piece of kitchen equipment to have along with a kitchen food scale. Having both in your kitchen means you’ll be able to make all of the different recipes on my blog as I use both cups and weighted measures.
- Box of Chocolate Cake Mix – plus the ingredients to make the cake mix, usually eggs, oil, and water.
- Powdered Sugar – known as Icing Sugar in the UK
- Pure Vanilla Extract – always buy the best you can afford, it really does make a difference!
- Black Gel Food Coloring
- Orange Food Coloring Gel
- Wilton Halloween Pumpkin Sprinkle Mix – 5 (3oz) packages*
*You are going to need a LOT of Halloween sprinkles for these cupcakes! Probably around 15-ounces total! You can use any kind of Halloween sprinkles you like. We used the Wilton pumpkin mix, but there are lots of great options on Amazon! Here are my favorites:
More Recipes Using Lots of Sprinkles!
One of the hero ingredients in this recipe is cupcake sprinkles! So here are some more recipes using the same:
- Easy Pumpkin Cake with Frosting & Sprinkles
- Red, White & Blue Marshmallow Pops for 4th of July!
- Mickey Mouse Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas Brunch
Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes Recipe Tips
Cupcake Making Tips
- Use festive Halloween-themed cupcake liners to bake your cakes in.
- Use an ice cream scoop to equally divide the cupcake mixture between the cupcake liners.
- The cupcakes should be ready in about 20 minutes – test their doneness by inserting a toothpick into the cakes. It should come out clean when the cupcakes are cooked through. Bake for an extra 2 minutes and check again.
- Cool the cupcakes in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Cupcake Frosting Tips
- When making the frosting you want the end result to be creamy, smooth, and for it to hold a stiff peak. You may have to adjust the amount of powdered sugar and cream slightly to achieve the consistency you need.
- The frosting is then divided and colored using food coloring. Remember that you can always add more color, but not take it away. Add a little to start with and add more to get the shade required.
- Food coloring is available in various forms. You’re most likely to find liquid coloring in your grocery store, and other types of coloring like gels, pastes, and powders in more specialised cake decorating shops. The cheapest option is liquids, but they can alter the consistency of your frosting and cake batter, so I prefer to use pastes or gels which doesn’t. A little goes a long way with food coloring gels and you can usually get a much deeper shade than you would with liquids.
- Turning white or cream frosting black can be tricky and can take a LOT of food coloring. A tip to counter that is to make a dark frosting by adding a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder. It will give you a slightly chocolate frosting, but on these vanilla cupcakes, that’s fine! Then adding black food coloring to the dark frosting shouldn’t take as much hard work to get a good deep black, rather than gray.
- These cupcakes are double-frosting, the first layer is flattened and rounded off a bit to create the base for lots of sprinkles, and then there is a swirl of two-tone frosting on top of that.
- Put an ice cream scoop to good use again for the first frosting layer and use a knife or angled spatula to level it off.
- Use a piping bag fitted with a large star tip for the two-color frosting swirl.
- There are two ways you can do multi-color frosting:
- Scoop half the side of the piping bag with white frosting and the other half with orange, then squeeze some frosting out until the two colors combine.
- Or, use the double piping bag by putting a piping bag of each color into another piping bag fitted with the tip and frosting as usual. Wilton has a great demonstration video on YouTube that I highly recommend.
- If you feel like you are going to be making a lot of cakes and cupcakes in your future, I think it is worth investing in a set of piping tips so that you know you always have the right ones on hand for a recipe.
- Do not overfill the piping bag with frosting, and make sure you squeeze the frosting down the bag to expel any air bubbles.
- If you are not confident with your piping skills you can practice on some parchment paper first and scoop the frosting back into the bag to use on the cupcakes. just make sure you practice with ONE color and not the two mixed together!
More Halloween Cupcake Recipes
Looking for more Halloween cupcakes to make? Check these recipes out next:
How Do I Make Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes?
Just check out the recipe card below with full ingredients, and instructions. You can print the card out too (don’t worry, the pics don’t print to save your ink!).
Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes
These double-frosted Halloween Sprinkles Cupcakes are bright and colorful and perfect for spooky parties!
Ingredients
- 1 box chocolate cake mix + ingredients to make them.
For the Frosting
- 3 cups unsalted butter, softened
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 5-7 Tbsp heavy whipping cream (double cream)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Bblack food coloring gel
- Orange food coloring gel
For Decorating
- 5 (3oz) packages Wilton Halloween Pumpkin Sprinkle Mix
Instructions
- Set oven to temperature instruction on cake mix box and line cupcake pans with 24 Halloween cupcake liners. Set aside.
- Make cake mix according to package instructions and divide evenly between the cupcake liners.
- Bake for the time directed or until done - a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake should come out clean.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
- To make the frosting use an electric stand or handheld mixer. Place the butter, powdered sugar, cream and vanilla into a mixing bowl and mix on medium speed until combined and smooth.
- Scoop ½ cup of frosting into another bowl and add some orange food coloring gel and stir to combine to the desired shade.
- Place the orange frosting into one side of a piping bag fitted with a star tip.
- Scoop ½ cup of frosting and add this to the other side of the piping bag. Squeeze down to the tip and set aside.
- Add black food coloring to the remaining frosting mix well to combine.
- Pour the sprinkles into a bowl and stir to mix. Set aside.
- Use an ice cream scoop to place a scoop of black frosting onto each cooled cupcake.
- Use a knife or angle spatula to flatten and spread into a thick disc.
- Dip the frosted cupcakes into the sprinkles to cover well.
- Use the piping bag of orange and white frosting to pipe swirls on top of the sprinkle layer. You may have to squeeze a little of the frosting out first onto a plate to make sure the colors are combined.
Recommended Products
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 24 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 395Total Fat: 31gSaturated Fat: 19gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 86mgSodium: 19mgCarbohydrates: 30gFiber: 0gSugar: 29gProtein: 1g
This site uses Nutritionix to provide estimated nutrition. Nutritional information is always approximate and will depend on the quality of ingredients used and serving sizes. If you need exact calories and macros, please do your own calculations.
Make It A Meal!
You’ve made the dessert, but what about the rest of the courses?
Here are additional recipes to make a full meal!
- Appetizer: Halloween Quesadillas
- Main Dish: Mummy Meatballs
- Beverage: Toxic Waste Cocktail
There are 500+ Recipes on The Purple Pumpkin Blog for you to enjoy – please feel free to check them out too!
The post is part of the Crafty October series on The Purple Pumpkin Blog. Check out Crafty October from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012 for awesome Halloween ideas and inspiration; including recipes, printables, crafts, and more!