Mud and Worm Cupcakes for Halloween

This recipe originally appeared on my Thoughtful Eats column on the Woburn Patch.

Mud and Worm Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour

½ cup of cocoa powder (Recommended: Hershey’s)

1 heaping tsp of baking soda

1 stick of butter

½ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of regular sugar

2 eggs

¾ cup of milk

1 tsp of vanilla

chocolate frosting

gummy worms

This makes 10 cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together and add to a large bowl. Then add the butter, 2 sugars, eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix with a handheld mixer just until smooth.

Line a 12-cupcake tin with liners. Fill each liner ¾ of the way up with the batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

Once your cupcakes are cooled, take two of them, remove the top and crumble the rest in a small bowl.

Frost the remaining 10 cupcakes with the chocolate frosting. Sprinkle the cupcake crumbles over the top of each and pat gently so they stick to the frosting. In order to not make a mess, add the crumbles over the bowl of crumbles so the excess has somewhere to fall.

You can place one worm on the top of each cupcake. Or take a knife, poke a hole in the top and stick in a worm so it’s hanging out. Make sure that the head of the worm is out and you are sticking the worm backside-in. Enjoy!