Spooky spiderweb fudge muffins

Happy Halloween! To celebrate the witching hour, and, more importantly, October's Calendar Cakes challenge from Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes, I made some scrumptious chocolate fudge spiderweb muffins. Don't get too scared, they're only cakes...

Spiderweb muffins in a witch's cauldron

The recipe is from BBC Good Food.

50g dark chocolate
85g butter
1 tbsp coffee (you can use milk or just water if you prefer, I used espresso coffee)
200g self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
85g light muscovado sugar
50g golden caster sugar
1 egg
142ml soured cream

For the decorating:
100g dark chocolate
100g white chocolate

Don't be too scared of these fudge muffins

Melt the chocolate, butter, and coffee (or other liquid) in a glass bowl over simmering water. Allow to cool.
Mix together the dry ingredients and sieve.
Beat the egg and mix with the sour cream. Add this to the dry mix, then pour in the chocolate mix. Stir together carefully and don't over-mix.
Pour into muffin cases and bake at 190C (170C fan) for about 20 minutes.
 To decorate, melt the white and dark chocolate separately. Pour a little of each into separate piping bags. Spoon dark chocolate on to a muffin, quickly pipe circles of white chocolate on to the muffin, then use a small skewer to draw through the chocolate to make the spider web design. Do the same with the opposite design.

I found the decorating quick tricky as my kitchen was cold, and so the chocolate was hardening quickly. I would suggest melting half the chocolate at a time, and doing half a batch before melting the rest. Whatever you do, don't re-melt the chocolate if it hardens, as it will just turn into a glumpy mess. If the chocolate hardens inside the piping bags, I dipped them into the warm water over which I had melted the choc, which helped loosen it up a bit. Working quickly is KEY for them to look right. Mine are a bit hit and miss!

Late biscuits

For Hallowe'en I made some spooky gingerbread biscuits - I know it's a bit late to post about them, but I'm forgetful, forgive me.

They were bat and ghost shaped. I wasn't sure how to ice them, however, so they ended up a bit random. But I really liked the red-coloured icing - really looked good and bloody!

Hallowe'en itself was somewhat disappointing. Only two trick or treaters appeared at our door, and in reality they seemed to just be two teenage goths looking for sugar, and not too happy about the idea anyway. They didn't appreciate me squealing "Oh, you look so scary!!" considering they probably hadn't got changed out of their normal attire... But the pumpkin looked good in our window nevertheless!!

Happy Hallowe'en!

This year has been the first year I've ever really entered the Hallowe'en spirit. Never being allowed to as a youngster, I never knew how much fun it could be! I carved my first ever jack o' lantern and loved every second - it was so much fun and I really enjoyed it - we made him kinda spooky and kinda dopey at the same time.

I went to a Hallowe'en party yesterday, for my godson. All the children were dressed up - George was dressed as a pumpkin (SO cute), and two others had the cutest vampire outfits on. I dressed up like a witch, sort of - big red wig, scary makeup... None of the other adults were in fancy dress!! Typical!