Creepy and Delicious: Dark Chocolate Halloween Cupcakes

Creepy bleeding cupcakes are a fun Halloween dessert! This Halloween cupcake is a deep, dark devil’s food chocolate cupcake filled with a dark cherry and edible blood. Top this creepy confection off with sugar glass shards and more edible fake blood. Your Halloween party guests will be delighted.

I adore Halloween, and I’m in LOVE with creepy Halloween cupcakes.

What you are going to love about these cupcakes

• The cupcake is a rich, dark chocolate devil’s food cupcake.
• Filled with Luxardo cherries and syrup.
• Topped with a magnificent cream cheese buttercream.
• Decorated with a homemade sugar glass shard and edible blood.

Bleeding Halloween Cupcakes

This recipe is so fun to make and even more fun to eat. The cupcake flavor profile is a lot like a black forest cake. If that feels more authentic, you can swap out the cream cheese frosting for a whipped cream frosting.

The sugar glass and edible blood give this cupcake true Halloween gore. Biting into them reveals a juicy cherry filling that bleeds out for even more fun.

Ingredients For Devil’s Food Cupcakes

Devil’s food cupcakes are rich dark chocolate cupcakes. These are the holy grail of chocolate cupcakes. They are devilishly delicious with rich chocolaty flavor and a moist and tender crumb.

• all-purpose flour
• cocoa powder
• baking soda
• baking powder
• kosher salt
• unsalted butter
• granulated sugar
• eggs
• water
• vanilla extract

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream cheese frosting is a classic frosting that is often paired with chocolate and red velvet cakes. It’s creamy and has a sweet and tangy flavor that isn’t overly sweet.

• cream cheese
• unsalted butter
• heavy whipping cream
• powdered sugar
• kosher salt
• vanilla extract

Ingredients for the Sugar Glass Recipe

Make sugar glass by heating sugar and water to the hard crack temperature for candy (300° F–310° F). Pour the hot sugar syrup onto a silpat to harden. Once the sugar glass is completely cool and hard, you can break it apart into shards of glass.

• superfine granulated sugar (sometimes called baker’s sugar or casters’ sugar)
• water

Ingredients For Edible Fake Blood

Edible fake blood is easy to make, and you can use it for all your favorite Halloween baking recipes.

Be warned. Edible blood stains EVERYTHING!

• corn syrup or Lyle’s golden syrup: Lyle’s golden syrup has a consistency like sugar corn syrup but is made from cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup
• red gel food dye: red food coloring doesn’t have the same intensity of color as a gel food dye.
• powdered sugar
• water

Extras and Special Equipment

• Luxardo Cherries (find these by the cocktail ingredients)
• Candy Thermometer
• Silpat: the best nonstick baking mat
• Heat resistant spatula

How to make bloody Halloween cupcakes

Step 1—Start by baking a batch of Devil’s food cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350℉.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk slightly to blend.
3. Add the water and butter to a saucepan and bring to a boil. 
4. Add the hot liquid to the dry ingredients and mix. 
5. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla. Stir until the liquid is incorporated. Don’t over-mix. The batter may still be a little lumpy and pretty liquid-y.
6. Portion out into lined cupcake pans. You should make approximately 18 cupcakes. Fill each cupcake liner three-quarters of the way full.
7. Bake for 30 minutes. Until a wooden stick comes out clean. Or until the internal temperature of the cupcakes reaches 201℉
8. Set aside and cool before frosting. 

💡 While the cupcakes are cooling, make the other elements needed for these cupcakes.

How to make sugar glass

Making sugar glass is a straightforward technique that sounds intimidating at first. Remember that hot sugar is molten level hot.

NEVER try to touch it with your fingers for any reason.

Step 1: Heat the sugar syrup to 300-310℉

The shards of sugar glass have only one requirement. Make sure you heat the sugar to the correct temperature. 300-310℉ (149-154℃).

This temperature is called the hard crack stage. It’s the temperature used to make toffee, brittles, and lollipops.

A  candy thermometer (affiliate link) is your secret weapon for creating sugar glass.

Step 2: Carefully pour the sugar syrup onto A Silpat mat

I use a Silpat silicone mat to do this. Nothing sticks to these mats. They are fantastic for making things like butter toffee and edible glass. The mat makes it easy to spread the hot sugar nice and evenly.

If you don’t have a Silpat mat, you can spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray and then pour the hot sugar syrup onto it.

Once you have poured your sugar, use a heat-resistant silicone spatula (affiliate link) to quickly spread it into a thin sheet.

PRO-TIP: Watch the sugar syrup very closely. Once it starts getting hot, the temperature climbs very quickly. And whatever you do, DO NOT TOUCH THE SUGAR with your finger.

Step 3: Crack the sugar into glass shards

After the sugar has completely cooled, it’s time for the fun of cracking the sugar into your edible glass shards by breaking them with your hands.

How to make edible blood

I know you have been waiting all your life for an edible blood recipe.

An edible fake blood recipe is a mixture of corn syrup (affiliate link) and food-grade gel food coloring (affiliate link). Confectioners or powdered sugar is used to thicken it. It’s easy to make and stains everything, so be careful.

1. Start with a quarter cup of corn syrup and then add true red food-grade gel until you get a bright red blood color.
2. Add in confectioners sugar a tablespoon at a time until you get a consistency that is like thick honey.

Definitely, DO NOT use edible blood as costume blood unless you want to be stained red.

How to make cream cheese frosting

1. Beat together the cream cheese and butter until the mixture is slightly fluffy. 
2. Add the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time. Incorporate slowly at first. 
3. Add the cream and vanilla and beat on high until fluffy. 
4. Refrigerate for about an hour before using. 
5. Place the frosting into a piping bag and pipe the frosting onto cupcakes. (optional)

How to Decorate Bleeding Halloween Cupcakes

Now it’s time for the fun! Decorating!

Step 1—core out the cupcakes

Now that the cupcakes are completely cooled, you will remove a small amount of the center to make room for any filling.  

You can do this with a cupcake corer tool (affiliate link). OR a small pairing knife. Once you get this technique down, you can fill any cupcake with anything like a pro.

MY METHOD: Like with my St. Paddy’s Day Car Bomb Cupcakes, I use a small paring knife at a 45-degree angle to carve out a small cone shape. It’s much easier than it sounds.

step 2—Fill each cupcake

Once you have the cupcakes cored, fill them with a Luxardo cherry and a few teaspoons of syrup from the cherries. This will give you the most fabulous faux blood-filled cupcakes.

Step 3—Frost the cupcakes

I like to use a piping bag (affiliate link) fitted with a large round frosting tip (affiliate link) to frost these cupcakes.

If you don’t have a fancy piping bag or piping tips, you can use a freezer bag with the corner cut off. You also can use a knife or offset spatula for frosting cupcakes.

Step 4—Edible blood and sugar glass

I like to save this step right before serving the cupcakes.

1. Use a spoon to drizzle the cupcakes with edible blood.
2. Dip the sugar glass into the edible blood and stab them — lovingly, of course —into the blood-spattered cupcakes.

⛔️ Be warned that the sugar glass will start to melt inside the cupcakes after a few hours, so it is best to stab your cupcakes relatively close to the time you are serving them.

More Halloween recipes

• Dark Chocolate Sandwich Cookies – Gourmet BAT Oreos.
• Savory Parmesan Shortbread Monster Fingers

More Holiday cupcake recipes

• St. Paddy’s Day Car Bomb Cupcakes