With Halloween right around the corner it’s time to wrak your brain for some spooky baking idea!

I’ve decided to bake some fluffy vanilla cream cupcakes topped by ghost meringues ideal for Halloween parties.

Ingredients

For the cupcakes (16 pieces):

– 5 eggs

– 150 g granulated sugar

– 5 g of vanilla sugar

– 100 g flour

For the cream:

– 3 egg yolks

– 250 ml of milk

– 80 g of granulated sugar

– 25 g of flour

– the peel of 1 lemon

– 5 g of vanilla sugar

– 250 ml of whipped cream

For the ghosts:

– 3 egg whites

– 1 pinch of salt

– 220 g of powdered sugar

– 5 g of vanilla sugar

First of all prepare the meringue ghosts. Preheat the oven to 80° C. Whisk the egg whites until foamy, add the sugars and the salt gradually while beating. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Put the mixture in a pastry bag fitted with a large spout tip and form your ghosts on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for approximately 3 hours or until meringues are dry. Paint the eyes with edible pencils.

For the cupcakes preheat the oven to 180° C. Take the 5 eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Whisk the egg whites with half of the sugar until stiff peaks form. Whisk now the egg yolks, the vanilla sugar and the other half of granulated sugar until the mixture is pale yellow and fluffy. Add slowly the flour.

Slowly and carefully add the yellow mixture to the whisked egg whites. Be careful not to deflate the mixture! Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake for around 20 minutes.

For the cream whisk together the egg yolks, the vanilla sugar and the lemon peel until light and fluffy. Add slowly the flour and the milk being careful not to form lumps. Cook the mixture in a saucepan over medium heat until it starts boiling. Let it cool down in the fridge for around 1 hour. Now whip the 250 ml of cream and add it slowly to the cold lemon and vanilla mixture.

Create a hole in the middle of your cupcakes and fill it with the cold cream. If you prefer, before adding the cream, you can also add some melted chocolate on the bottom of the hole. Put your meringue ghosts in the middle and decorate with some cream on the borders.

For a really scary Halloween ghost add a “BOO!”  flag on each cupcake :)

Here you have your super spooky Halloween baking idea for delicious treats!

Bon appétit,

Anna