Hot Cross Black Widows
Submitted by fulelrtonmom
Halloween black widow spider muffins with black cream cheese frosting, a red hourglass mark, and licorice string legs. A spooky, fun baking project kids will love.
YIELD
1 dozenPREP
40 minCOOK
20 minREADY
60 minThese Halloween spider muffins look creepy and impressive but start with a basic muffin recipe anyone can handle. Plain vanilla muffins get topped with cream cheese frosting dyed jet black using food coloring, a red frosting hourglass for the Black Widow mark, and licorice string legs poking out the sides.
The muffin base is intentionally simple: flour, egg, oil, milk, sugar. No fancy flavors competing with the frosting. You want a sturdy, golden muffin that supports the thick layer of decorated frosting on top.
Mixing the food colors to get true black takes patience. Start with a base of blue and red, then add green and yellow drop by drop. It takes more coloring than you’d expect, so don’t stop when it looks dark gray.
Kitchen Tips
- Keep the batter lumpy. Stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Overmixed muffins turn tough and peaked instead of round, and round tops look more like spider bodies.
- Let the muffins cool completely before frosting. Warm muffins melt the cream cheese frosting into a runny mess.
- Use a toothpick to draw the red hourglass shape. Pipe a small dot, then drag it into the classic hourglass with the tip.
Variations
- Use chocolate muffins instead of vanilla for a darker base that shows less through the frosting.
- Swap licorice strings for pretzel sticks if you don’t like licorice.
- Add candy eyes pressed into the frosting for an even creepier spider face.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).
Grease the bottoms, but not the sides, of 12 medium-sized muffin cups with the butter or margarine.
Beat the egg in a large bowl with a fork.
Stir in the vegetable oil and milk.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a small mixing bowl and stir together.
Add to the egg mixture.
Stir lightly until the dry ingredients are barely moistened.
The batter should be lumpy. Fill the muffin cups ¾ full of batter. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the muffins turn golden brown. Carefully remove from the oven, turn out of the pan and set on a rack to cool. To prepare frosting, mix cream cheese and butter together with an electric mixer. Slowly add powdered sugar and continue beating. Add vanilla extract and lemon juice, and mix thoroughly. Put a small portion of frosting in a separate bowl and mix into it a few drops of red food coloring. Set aside. Color the remaining frosting, drop by drop, with red, yellow, green and blue food coloring until it is black. With a rubber spatula, spread the black frosting on top of each muffin. Then add a small red Black Widow hourglass to each one. Add legs to your spiders using licorice whip strings. You may need to cut the licorice into shorter pieces. Place arachnids on a platter and serve. You may want to decorate the platter with fake spiderwebs.
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