Hooting Halloween owls

By Tana Ramsay

Delicious and simple chocolate cup cakes to make with the kids at Halloween – real crowd-pleasers

Ready in 30-35 mins, plus cooling and decorating

Serves 12
Easy

Nutrition per serving

kcal 615
fat 38g
saturates 23g
carbs 68g
sugars 54g
fibre 1g
protein 6g
salt 1.06g

Ingredients

280g butter, softened
280g golden caster sugar
200g self-raising flour, minus 1 rounded tbsp
1 rounded tbsp cocoa powder
6 medium eggs
200g butter, softened
280g icing sugar, sifted
1 tube orange ready-to-use icing
1 small bag Maltesers
1 tube choco M&Ms minis (use just the brown sweets) or Cadbury's mini buttons
1 tub jelly diamonds (just the orange ones)

Method

Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with brown muffin cases. Beat the first 5 ingredients to a smooth batter and spoon between the cases, almost filling them to the top. You may have a little left over. Bake for 20-25 mins until risen and spongy. Cool on a rack.
Beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth. Slice off the very tops of the cakes and cut each piece in half. Spread a generous layer of icing over each cake.
Working on one cake at a time, squirt a pea-sized blob of orange icing onto two Maltesers and use to fix a brown M&M on each. Sit the eyes, two pieces of cake top (curved edge up) and a jelly diamond on the icing to make an owl.

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