Halloween is coming again, and I love it! These red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting are absolutely delicious! As a decoration, perfect "fake blood" and all the appropriate Halloween decorations.

We found various Halloween-themed baking decorations in the store with the kids, and then last weekend we started baking! Cupcakes are great because they are always pretty much guaranteed to succeed. So these cupcakes come with a nice cream cheese frosting, created from the combination of butter cream and fresh cheese. It goes perfectly with red velvet muffins!

The recipe for the muffins and the frosting is originally from the Meillä Kotona website. I slightly modified the ingredients of the original recipe, but otherwise the instructions are the same. In the original recipe, for example, rapeseed oil was used, which I myself never use.. Small changes, great results!

The best fake blood for Halloween cupcakes

Over the years, I have tested different "bloods" for decorating pastries. Suitable color, texture, mouthfeel. All gelatin/jelly-type solutions have generally looked good, but either placing them on top of the pastry requires patience and long nerves, or their texture has remained quite unpleasant.

This time I accidentally came up with the best fake blood ever! Caramel made from red colored condensed milk. I buy it ready-to-use caramelized condensend milk because I'm lazy. It also made a good filling for these cupcakes, as well as a blood dripping decoration on the surface of the cupcakes. The "blood" kept its shape and taste well even in the refrigerator. It didn't start to "water down" or become runny in the fridge like I feared. Perfect.

Red Velvet Halloween Cupcakes

Time: 50 min (30 min prep and decoration, 20 min baking time)
Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 3 dl (1 + 1/3 cup) wheat flour

• 2 dl (3/4 cup) sugar

• 1 Tbsp of dark cocoa powder

• 1 tsp of vanilla sugar

• 2 tsp of baking powder

• a pinch of salt

• 2 eggs

• 1 dl (0,4 cup) milk (room temperature)

• 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar

• 1,5 dl (2/3 cup) olive oil

• red and pink food coloring

Frosting

• 75 g (2,6 oz) butter (room temperature)

• 1,5 dl (2/3 cup) powdered sugar

• 0,5 teaspoon vanilla sugar

• 2 tsp milk (room temperature)

• 200 g (7 oz) cream cheese

"Blood"

• caramelized condensed milk

• red and pink caramel color

Preparation

1. Heat the oven to 175°C (345°F). Place the paper liners in the cups of a muffin tin.

2. Prepare the cupcakes. Mix the dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix egg, milk, apple cider vinegar, oil and food coloring. Add the dry ingredients to the liquids through a sieve and mix the dough just until it is smooth.

3. Divide the batter into muffin tins and bake the cupcakes on the middle level of the oven for approx. 17 minutes or until a stick inserted into the middle of the muffin sticks to a few juicy crumbs.

4. Immediately transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool.

5. Prepare the "blood". Beat the caramel made from condensed milk until it is pliable and smooth. Color it with red and pink food coloring. Spoon it into a piping bag.

6. Make holes in the center of the cooled muffins and pour "blood" into them. Save the rest of the "blood" for decoration.

7. Prepare the frosting. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla sugar and milk until fluffy, pale cream forms. This takes several minutes. Fold the softened cream cheese into the vanilla cream and pipe the frosting over the muffins.

8. Pipe "blood" onto the frosting so that it looks like dripping blood. Decorate with other Halloween decorations as you wish.