Best Halloween Cupcake Ideas

Grave cupcakes and graveyard scenes often use cookies for the tombstones. As you can see in the pictures, several types of store-bought cookies lend themselves to this purpose.

Crushed Oreos make great dirt, don't they? Skeletons, coffins, and creepy hands are more decorating possibilities. One cupcake designer went all out using a sweet bones and eyeballs sprinkle pack and what look like teddy grahams on this grave cupcake, it almost looks too gross to eat.

Photo credits, this section:
Zombie Graves by jamieanne
Coffin Cupcakes by Rachel of Cupcakes Take The Cake
RIP Cupcakes photo by cjmartin
Grave Cupcakes photo by ginnerobot
Grave Cupcakes by StarMama

Halloween Ghost Peeps are used in the first picture and the first how-to video below. Marshmallows are used for the ghosts in the second set.

Another neat idea for ghostly cupcakes is to drape a white fondant or gumpaste sheet over a form to make the more typical sheeted ghost, like these adorable boy and girl ghost cupcakes. Here's another cute set of ghost cupcakes made with fondant with more detail about how she made them.

Photo credits, this section:
Ghost Cupcakes by Andrea Wright
Ghost Cupcakes by Uriel 1998

The neat icing trick demonstrated in the video below can help you create some fantastic mummy cupcakes. The designer of the cupcake pictured above used chocolate chips for the eyes, flat side out.

Photo credits, this section:
Black Cat Cupcakes by I Am K.E.B.
Black Cat on Full Moon Cupcakes by kristin_a
Sculpted Cat Cupcakes by Clever Cupcakes

One option for making a Witch Hat for a cupcake is to use a Hershey's Kiss on a small round chocolate wafer cookie, using a dab of icing to hold the two together. Use a thin strip of icing to cover the seam and make a hatband. Finishing touches can be added by star shaped sprinkles or other sprinkles with dabs of icing to hold them on.

Using fondant gives us two options: you can sculpt the hat out of fondant like you would modeling clay, or cut a cookie cutter shape of a witches hat. Here's a how-to for a quick handmade Witch Hat.

Another version of a witch's hat uses an ice cream cone. Here's a how-to for those:Wicked Witch Cupcakes Recipe. They're a little different from the ones in the picture above, but the basic idea is the same.

The first Witch Hat Cupcake pictured is chocolate dipped Italian meringue, and could be done in a method similar to this: Valentines Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

The video shows how to make a messy brain on your cupcake, and you can read more instructions with step by step photos at this How to Make Brain Cupcakes.

For another variation of the frosting brain cupcake, you use a pastry bag with a wide tip and make fat zigzags as you move across the cupcake, as in these directions at FamilyFun: Brain Cupcake

For an even more built up and three-dimensional brain made of frosting based on the design in Hello Cupcake! but taken to an even gorier level, check out this recipe and how-to: Blood Clot and Brain Cupcakes. You could always tone the gore down if it's too over the top for your taste.

For candy brain cupcakes, there's a great how-to here: How to Make Brain Cupcakes.
You'll need a brain candy mold: