Homemade Halloween Brownie Cupcakes Recipe

Perfectly spooky, fudgy, chewy and insanely chocolaty 

homemade spiderweb brownie cupcakes

Your kids - and YOU too - are going to love this Halloween treat!
It's a brownie. It's a cupcake. And it's covered with a creamy chocolate frosting spiderweb. What else can one ask for?!?
These brownies are super easy to make from scratch. And they are so much better than those made from a box. It really doesn't take much longer. All you need is to quickly combine few ingredients. Yes, it's so simple!
The creamy frosting is made with good quality chocolate chips melted with heavy cream. To decorate I used store bought white icing. I know, I could have melted white chocolate, but I tried to make my job a little easier and faster.
The design is quite simple. Spoon some of the chocolate frosting on top of the cupcake, add the white icing in a spiral when it's still soft, and draw the spider web using a toothpick. It's probably better to start with one cupcake at a time. You can only draw the spiderweb when the icing and the frosting are still very soft. Once you get the hang of it, and are getting a little faster, you can probably do 3 or 4 decorations at the same time.
The design doesn't have to be perfect. Just make it fun! You can add a plastic spider ring as the finishing touch. The kids will absolutely love it!
Perfectly spooky, rich, fudgy, chewy and insanely chocolaty.

Ingredients: to make 20 cupcakes
For the brownies:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter 
• 1 cup of chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet)
• 4 eggs 
• 1.5 cups of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
• pinch of salt

To decorate: 

• 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• white icing for the spider web
• 20 plastic spider rings

Preparation time: 40 minutes for the brownies, plus maybe around 20 minutes to decorate

Directions:
1. Place 1 cup of chocolate chips and the butter into a microwave-safe bowl. Melt at medium-low power, checking and stirring every 10 seconds until well blended.

2. In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, the sugar and the vanilla extract.

3. Mix in the flour, salt, cocoa, eggs and melted butter/chocolate. Don't over-mix, just stir enough that all the ingredients are combined.

4. Spoon the batter into around 20 paper-lined muffin cups, about 3/4 of the way. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Check with a toothpick for readiness!

5. Melt in a double boiler 1 cup of chocolate chips with the heavy whipping cream. With a spoon, top the cupcake one at the time with the chocolate frosting. Right away, make a thin spiral with the white icing, and  draw the spiderweb using a toothpick. Simply draw lines from the center of the cupcake outward. Don't wait for the icing to dry or you won't be able to do this!

 Finish it up with a cute spider. Happy Halloween!!