Let’s celebrate Halloween with these spooky but cute monster strawberry cupcakes. The tender cupcakes are decorated with bright green smooth buttercream. But the real highlight are the fresh sweet strawberries with a scary chocolate mouth and white teeth. They’ll make a monstrous killer impression at your party.
What is your favourite Halloween treat? I love fun treats. They can be either sweet or savory, I like them all. Wink. And, I am in love with these super gorgeous monster strawberry cupcakes. They have it all: they are delicious, cute and scary at the same time and fun. A total success!
For more gorgeous and fun Halloween ideas check these out: monster jelly doughnuts, gross zombie guts, toxic marbled deviled eggs, a colourful spider web roll cake or these cute mummies.
Probably you think how complicated it is to make them. It’s not complicated at all. Firstly, you just need a plan written down, step by step. Secondly, the best way is to make each part separately (cupcake, buttercream, strawberry “monster”). Thirdly, you put it all together and create a beautiful treat.
Making a cupcake is pretty easy and you can make any cupcake you like most. Choose your favourite flavour, such as chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, apple, coconut or chocolate chips. Since I was making monster strawberries, I added some strawberries with a hint of lime in the cupcake as well.
Once again I used my favourite French buttercream. Yeah, I can’t help it. It’s so creamy, buttery and delicious. However, you can use any buttercream you like. A nice cream cheese frosting will work fantastic, too. Going back to my buttercream, this time I added lime zest and some lime juice in it. Like that it suits more the green colour. Wink.
But let’s get to the point. What makes these cupcakes special and spooky is the topping or more exactly the monster strawberries. In fact, just applying these white teeth, transforms a small sweet fruit into a hungry monster plant. Fantastic!
Tips for a perfect strawberry monster
You can prepare the buttercream a couple of days in advance. When ready to use, bring it to room temperature and quickly mix it until fluffy and smooth again.
After you cut out the mouth of the strawberries, tap it dry with a paper towel. As a result, the chocolate will stick much easier. Also, make sure to completely “seal” the strawberry mouth with chocolate.
In order to create the white teeth, use either plain buttercream or royal icing.
When serving, allow the buttercream to come to room temperature. That will bring out a fantastic flavour and the buttercream will be smooth and silky.
Ingredients for six monster strawberry cupcakes:
- 90 g butter (room temperature)
- 100 g sugar
- 2 drops vanilla paste
- two pinches of salt
- 1 egg (separated)
- 90 g strawberries (plus 6 medium to large strawberries for topping)
- 1 lime or lemon (juice and zest)
- 80 ml buttermilk
- 140 g flour (sieved)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 30 g ground hazelnuts
- 260 g French buttercream (150 g butter, 55 g egg, 55 g sugar; check the French buttercream recipe for the steps)
- green food gel colour (as needed)
- 100 g dark chokolate (or milk chocolate)
- 1 Tbsp of royal icing or white buttercream
You’ll also need a star nozzle, a leaf nozzle and a muffin tin.
To begin, preheat the oven to 185º C and line the muffin tin with paper forms. Now, prepare the cupcakes. In a larger bowl, combine butter and sugar (keeping two spoons aside). Beat until pale and fluffy. Then, separate the egg and add the egg yolk, salt and vanilla to the butter. Whisk to incorporate well.
Afterwards, whip the egg white with the remaining two spoons of sugar until stiff peaks. Also, in another bowl, sift the flour and baking powder and stir in the ground hazelnuts.
Then, combine strawberries and lime juice with buttermilk. Puree, with an immersion blender, until smooth (small strawberry chunks are allowed). At this point, alternating, stir the strawberry-buttermilk and flour-hazelnuts to the butter-egg mixture. Once the flour is well incorporated, gently fold in the egg whites.
Furthermore, fill each form up to 2/3 and put to bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick, when inserted in the centre, comes back out clean. After the cupcakes are baked, remove them from the baking tin and let them cool off completely.
Meanwhile, prepare the buttercream. If you decide to use buttercream also to create the teeth, take 1 spoon of it and set it aside. Then, to the remaining buttercream add the lime zest, a couple of drops of lime juice and the green gel colour. Add a little at a time, until satisfied with the green colour. Place aside.
Next, wash the six strawberries, cut the top (with the green leaves) off and make a cut to create the mouth. Tap dry each strawberry and place them in the fridge. Then, over a water bath (or in a microwave), melt the chocolate and let it slightly cool off.
Fill a small piping bag with the melted chocolate, take the strawberries out of the fridge and quickly tap the “mouths” dry (if needed). Then, cut off the tip of the piping bag and pipe the chocolate on the strawberries to cover the whole mouth opening. Place the strawberries back in the fridge to set.
How to assemble the monster strawberry cupcakes
Once the cupcakes are chilled, prepare two piping bags. One with a star nozzle and one with a leaf nozzle. Add one spoon of green buttercream to the bag with the leaf nozzle and the rest to the other piping bag.
Firstly, pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes. Secondly, put the white buttercream (which you kept aside) or royal icing in a small piping bag, cut off the tip of it and pipe small white teeth on each strawberry chocolate mouth. Place one strawberry on each cupcake covered with buttercream. And, thirdly, pipe here and there a small cute leaf.
Finally, serve these cute monster strawberry cupcakes straight away or store them in the fridge. In this case, allow them to come to room temperature before serving. They will make a killing cute Halloween treat and will astonish your guests.
Enjoy.
