A Haunted House Cupcake Tower is your tastiest nightmare creation! Make it spooky or make it fun, either way the chocolate cupcakes taste amazing!
This post and recipe was created for #HalloweenTreatsWeek! I was sent samples by some of the sponsor companies but as always opinions are 100% mine.
Haunted House Cupcake Tower
Are you planning a Halloween party? There’s so many options out there for Halloween desserts, but I love how this haunted house cupcake tower turned out. There’s jumbo cupcakes, standard cupcakes and mini cupcakes loaded up with fun Halloween candies.
Homemade, little tombstones made from mini Hershey bars, candy marshmallows, and fun cupcake toppers make your haunted house extra spooky.
Candy Sourced
For this creation I used the following items:
- Wilton Orange and Black Gel Piping
- Wilton Ghosts and Bats Cupcake Toppers
- Various Wilton Sprinkles
- Sweets and Treats Black Nonpariels
- Sweets and Treats Black Tie Mix
- Treat Street Eyeball Gummies
- Mini Hershey bar candies
- Orange gummy pumpkins (for the windows)
Chocolate Cupcake and Frosting
I used a doctored up chocolate cake recipe. Basically, to keep it easy, I used a base of chocolate box cake mix and added in some buttermilk, sour cream and an extra egg. I find it helps to make cupcakes less fragile.
For the chocolate frosting, I turned to my easy “cheaters buttercream”. Use canned chocolate frosting and whip it with a cup of powdered sugar, 1/4 cup of dark cocoa powder and some black food coloring. Whip it for at least 5 minutes to get it extra fluffy and not so brown looking.
What’s that tower?
The towers are Oreo ice cream cones! I know – mind blown! These are hit or miss to find them in the stores (I can’t even find them on Amazon right now). If you can’t find them, you can roll regular cones in black candy melts. That works just as well.
Add some fun decoration to your tower tops – gummy eyeballs, marshmallow ghosts, and a bat are on my tower tops.
Making the Chocolate Trees
Making the chocolate trees is easy. HERE’S A TEMPLATE, but feel free to make one up if you want. The important thing is to have a long “root” to stick down and into the cupcake. Use tempered chocolate or candy melts. Make the trunks thick because you don’t want them to break and make a few extra because you will break one…
Print the template, place it on a cookie sheet and cover the template with parchment paper or wax paper. Trace over the tree template with the chocolate.
Sprinkle on some nonpariels and some mini ghosts before the chocolate dries and your trees are good to go.
Constructing your Haunted Cupcake Tower
Once you have your cupcakes baked and cooled, your chocolate trees made, the tombstones decorated, your frosting is colored and your towers ready to go – then you are ready to construct your haunted house cupcake tower!
I started with three jumbo cupcakes as the base. Those each got a standard sized cupcake on top. To hold the cupcakes from falling over, I used candy apple dowels to secure them in place.
Add more standard cupcakes and mini cupcakes to the cake platter with some candy pumpkins and eyeballs along with the tombstones to the cupcakes. Have fun with it. It’s not meant to be perfect.
#HalloweenTreatsWeek – 2019
Check out the amazing #HalloweenTreatsWeek recipes from our bloggers today!
- BloodShot Eyeball Chocolate Apple Slices from Big Bear’s Wife
- Halloween Sugar Cookie Bars from Fake Ginger
- Day of the Dead Mexican Hot Cocoa from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
- Gluten Free Graveyard Dirt Cake from Frugal & Fit
- Sugar Skull S’mores Cheesecake from Cookaholic Wife
- Jack Skellington Peanut Butter Cups from Cheese Curd In Paradise
- Hocus Pocus Potion from Jen Around the World
- Halloween Puppy Chow from Daily Dish Recipes
- Halloween Spooky Finger Cupcakes from Everyday Eileen
- Ghostly Halloween Brownie Cupcakes from Sweet Beginnings
- Halloween Chocolate Crack from Back To My Southern Roots
- Frosted Halloween Sheet Pan Cookies from Creative Southern Home
- Slime Lava Cakes from The Spiffy Cookie
- Hocus Pocus Cake Popsicles from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
- Dia de los Muertos Cake from Lemon Blossoms
- Ghoul’s Blood Cocktail from West Via Midwest
- Halloween Pretzel Owls from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
- Monster Mash Halloween Edible Cookie Dough from Strawberry Blondie Kitchen
- Haunted Gingerbread House from The Redhead Baker
- Black Cat Brownies from Jonesin’ For Taste
- Frankenberry Berry Hand Pies from Sweet ReciPEAs
- Haunted House Cupcake Tower from Pint Sized Baker
- Halloween Mummy Pizza Toast from Katie’s Cucina
- Ghostly Pumpkin Custards from My Sweet Zepol
- Cinnamon & Sugar Pretzel Bones from Savory Moments
- Halloween Candy Kabobs from Intelligent Domestications
- Bloody Good Vegan Cherry Chip Bundt Cake from The Baking Fairy
- Halloween Hand Pies from A Blender Mom
- Halloween Dessert Board from Books n’ Cooks
Haunted House Cupcake Tower
A Haunted House Cupcake Tower is your tastiest nightmare creation! Make it spooky or make it fun, either way the chocolate cupcakes taste amazing!
Ingredients
Chocolate Cupcakes
- 1 box Dark Chocolate Cake Mix
- 2/3 C sour cream
- 3/4 C buttermilk
- 1/3 C oil
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 C dark chocolate cocoa powder
- 2 tsp Adams Best Pure Vanilla Extract
Dark Chocolate Frosting
- 1 can Chocolate Frosting
- 1 C powdered sugar
- 1/4 C dark chocolate cocoa powder
- 1 tsp Adams Best Pure Vanilla extract
- 3 drops black food coloring
Candies for Decorating
- Wilton Halloween Sprinkles
- Sweets and Treats Black Sprinkles
- Treat Street Candy Eyeballs
- Weilton Halloween Cupcake Toppers
- Sour Gummy Pumpkins (for windows)
- Chocolate candy melts (for trees)
- Mini Hershey Bars (for tombstones)
Instructions
Bake the Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare jumbo cupcake pan with 4 liners, a standard cupcake pan with 8 black liners and an mini cupcake pan with 10 black liners.
- Mix all the ingredients together and divide the batter among the cupcake pans. If there is leftover batter, bake a few more cupcakes!
- Bake for 18 - 25 minutes depending on the size of the cupcakes and check with a toothpick for doneness. Cool completely.
Prepare the Decorations
- For the trees - melt candy melts in the microwave. Use the template on a cookie sheet and cover with parchment. Pipe out trees in chocolate and add sprinkles. Set aside to harden completely.
- For the windows - Cut the green tops off of the pumpkin gummy candy. Roll the orange gummy candy flat. Use sugar to keep the candy from sticking to your rolling pin and surface. Cut out windows and decorate with melted chocolate to make "windows". Set aside to harden.
- For the tombstones - Unwrap a dozen mini Hershey bars. Decorate with RIP using Wilton black piping gel. Add candy bones if desired.
- Decorate the Towers - If you have Oreo ice cream cones, you can use melted chocolate to attach gummy candies and sprinkles to them. Or cover standard ice cream cones in black candy melts and attach the candies. Set aside to dry completely.
Make the Frosting
- in a stand up mixer, whip together the ingredients. Add in more powdered sugar if you like a thicker frosting. If you can't find chocolate extract, vanilla extract will be fine. Add just a few drops of black food coloring. Too much will make it taste bitter. Whip on medium high for at least 5 minutes.
- Transfer to a piping bag to make it easy to pipe on.
Assemble the Cupcake Tower
- Add frosting to three jumbo cupcakes and top with black sprinkles. Place on a cake platter.
- Add frosting to three standard cupcakes and top with black sprinkles. Place on top of jumbo cupcakes. Place a dowel or large straw down the center of the cupcakes to help them from falling over.
- Add your tombstones, towers, windows, and trees to the cupcakes.
- Decorate with extra candies and have ghoulish time!
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
-
Brach's Candy Corn And Pumpkins Assortment -
Sour Jelly Pumpkins Candy
-
Ghost Gummy Decorations 8 ct
-
Adams Extract Flavoring 1.5oz Bottles (Pack of 3) Choose Flavor Below (Adams Best Twice as Strong Vanilla 1.5oz)
-
Black Foil Mini Cupcake Liners
-
Wilton Perfect Results Premium Non-Stick Mini Cupcake Pan, 24-Cup
-
Foil Baking Cups Cupcake Liners
-
Wilton Recipe Right Muffin Pan, 12-Cup Non-Stick Muffin Pan
-
Wilton Recipe Right Non-Stick 6 Cup Jumbo Muffin Pan, Set of 2
-
Wilton Jumbo White Baking Cups
Images, text and all other content Copyrighted©Karyn Granrud, Susanne Queck and Wunderlander Verlag LLC, or ©Pro Stock Media via Canva.com. Unlicensed republishing permitted. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn on qualified purchases.
How fun is this???? I would love to make this tower!
Wow!! This is pretty spectacular! I love all the details and decorations!
Thank you. There’s a lot of little bits and pieces, but it comes together so easily.
This is one of the most amazing cupcake displays I’ve seen for Halloween and I’m so in LOVE with it!!
Thanks so much! I love edible crafts like this. They are so much fun!
Wow, this is soooo creative!! I love everything you’ve done here! Every detail is fabulous.
Thanks so much. There’s a lot of details, but it’s not that difficult to put together. I had a lot of fun with it.
This is fantastic! I love all of the little details. This looks so chocolaty and delicious!
It might look like a lot of work, but it really wasn’t. All the little details can be made while the cupcakes are cooking and cooling. Thanks!
This is one amazing Halloween dessert display!!! Love how creative and delicious it is!
What a tower of terrifying looking treats!