Bake Me Cakes: Happy Halloween!

I'm not normally too involved with Halloween, it was not as big when I was little as it is now in Sweden. In Sweden we had something different which was during Easter, we called it påskkärringar and we dressed up as little witches (cute ones though, not evil). We went from house to house giving out drawings we have made in exchange for sweets. More of that and those traditions when we come to Easter.

So anyway, I wanted to come home from work and make something Halloween inspired but oooh...a day which started as glorious as the below.....

Sunny with dark rain clouds, spooky....

ended with unfortunate delays at Waterloo, meaning I got home later and ready for bed. I had such plans too, I wanted to make chocolate cupcakes with pumpkin puree I had bought especially. However I turned to my trusty box of cake mixture from Sweden, the one my mother kindly packed into my brother's tiny bag when he came to London a couple of weeks ago.

I never use cake mixes but it never hurts to have a box in your cake cupboard!

The chocolate cake mix only required water (which I exchanged for milk) and 50g of melted butter. It went into the oven for 20 minutes.

I was determined to make them as Halloweenie as possible so I made some cream cheese frosting which I coloured orange (not much effort but I am so tired).

I used Hummingbird Bakery's recipe for the cream cheese frosting (I can eat it on it's own....almost!):

125g cream cheese

50g butter (softened)

300g icing sugar (sifted)

I added 1tsp of vanilla extract and add colour to personal preference.

Mix the butter and icing sugar together in a standing mixer with the paddle attachment. Once incorporated, add the cold cream cheese. Mix/ beat well until it's smooth and fluffy.

Pipe as desired.