Black Bottom Cupcakes have always been the quintessential bake sale goodie. But with a little creativity, it has been magically transformed into the cutest Halloween treat.

Growing up, Black Bottom Cupcakes have been a staple for any get together or school bake sale. So naturally there’s a family recipe for it. I adapted the recipe to fit the Halloween season and gave them a spooky twist. 

Usually the cupcakes would get a dollop of chocolate chip laced cream cheese but I decided to omit the chips from the cream cheese and add them to the cake instead. I shaped my little blobs to resemble cute ghosts then used a couple of chips for the eyes and mouth. The results turned out better than I initially thought they would. After the baking process my little ghosties still resembled, well, ghosts! If anything, they became more ethereal and spectral looking from the cream cheese baking into the chocolate cake, giving them their signature ghostly appearance. These cute cakes will be a spook-tacular addition to any Halloween treat table.

Black Bottom Cupcakes *Makes 1 ½ dozen cupcakes

Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz. cream cheese, room temp

1 egg

⅓ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

⅛ tsp kosher salt

Chocolate chips for decoration

Batter

1 ½ cups of All-Purpose flour

1 cup of granulated sugar

¼ cup of cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt

1 cup buttermilk

⅓ cup of vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp espresso powder or instant coffee

5 oz. mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. 

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, egg, sugar, vanilla and salt. Beat with a stand mixer until fluffy, put aside. 

In a separate bowl, whisk flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, and mix with a rubber spatula until everything is fully incorporated. Fold in the mini chocolate chips. 

Fill cupcake papers in a standard muffin tin, a third of the way full. Add a teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture and use a toothpick to shape a little ghost. I shaped my ghosts with a little tail and arms.

Decorate your ghosts with your chocolate chips; I used minis for the eyes and the larger chips for the mouth. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean. 

Cool completely on a wire rack before enjoying. 

*Notes: You can store any leftover cupcakes in a storage bag or cupcake container in the fridge for a week. Or you can store in the freezer, properly wrapped, for about a month. 

If you don’t want to make the ghost design, you can make regular black bottom cupcakes. Just follow the same recipe and mix the chocolate chips into the cream cheese mixture instead of the cake batter. I reversed this process from the original recipe so I wouldn’t have bumpy ghosts. 

The ghosts do puff up quite a bit and lose their shape during baking. It helps to make the ghost shapes as simple as possible when shaping them. 

You may lose some ghost eyes as the cupcake expands, I lost a couple to the cupcake papers. When I took them out of the oven I added new eyes while the cupcakes were still hot. They were good as new!