Chocolate Beetle Cupcakes w/ Bloody Cherry Butter Filling & Chocolate Dirt Frosting

Well, I wanted to make a Halloween dessert and I saw this beetle cupcake idea on Craftster. I figured I could make some vegan cupcakes and go from there. These turned out wonderful, but they're timely to make. Give yourself a few hours to make them leisurely. I modified the cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (which if you do not own, you have to). The frosting recipe is the exact one out of the book. I figure let the experts in baking give me their recipe - it would turn out much better than my own. This didn't let me down!

Chocolate Beetle Cupcakes w/ Bloody Cherry Butter Filling & Chocolate Dirt Frosting

* Prep Time: 1-2 hours
* Cook Time: 20 minutes
* Ingredients (for chocolate cupcakes): 

• 1 cup non-dairy milk*
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 cup sugar*
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp chocolate extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

* Ingredients (for chocolate buttercream frosting):

• 1/4 cup margarine, softened*
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tbsp non-dairy milk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

* Ingredients (remaining):

• 1 9 oz. jar cherry butter*
• 1 box food dye (red, blue, green, yellow)
• 7-8 Oreo cookies (or other vanilla cream sandwich cookies)*
• 1/2 8.8 oz. box marzipan*
• gold luster dust, to taste*

* Recipe (for chocolate cupcakes):

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, combine vinegar and milk. Set aside.
3. Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and combine well.
4. Combine all wet ingredients in another bowl including vinegar milk mixture and beat until foamy.
5. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until no lumps remain.
6. Pour into lined cupcake tray three-fourths of the way full in each.
7. Bake for 18-22 minutes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
8. Let cool completely.

* Recipe (for chocolate buttercream frosting):

1. Cream together margarine and shortening until combined.
2. Add the cocoa powder and mix well.
3. Next, add the powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time adding soy milk as you go. Mix between each 1/2 cups of sugar.
4. Add the vanilla extract and combine until fluffy and no more lumps are seen.

* Recipe (for rest of cupcake):

1. In a bowl, combine cherry butter with red food dye. Add as much red food dye as necessary to make it "blood red".
2. Using a melon baller, scoop the center out of the cupcake and take out some of the middle. Be sure you don't go too far down so as not to get the bottom of the cupcake.
3. Add 1-2 tsp of cherry butter to the center of the cupcake. Replace the top back on the cupcake.
4. Frost with the buttercream frosting.
5. In a blender, combine Oreo cookie tops (not the side with the centers) until they are thoroughly pulverized. Put the cookie dirt in a small bowl.
6. Roll each frosted cupcake in the cookie dirt and pat more with your hands. Shake the cupcake to take off stray cookie dirt.
7. In a bowl, add 5-10 drops of all four food dye colors. Mix. Add the marzipan and mash with a fork until combined.
8. Follow the directions here to make beetle marzipan figures.
9. Dust each beetle with gold luster dust.
10. Top each cupcake with one beetle.

* Note: For non-dairy milk, I used almond milk. Use any sort of non-dairy milk you prefer. Make sure your sugar is vegan. For margarine, I used Earth Balance soy-free variety. The cherry butter was a brand I found at Whole Foods called American Spoon. The Oreo type cookies I used were Back To Nature Classic Creme Cookies. For marzipan, I use Stramondo brand. Luster dust is edible glitter, more or less. You can find it in the baking section of JoAnn's or Michael's craft stores. You should use a paint brush to apply it, but I didn't have one handy so I just brushed with my fingers.


Have a spooky Halloween!