Vampire Cupcakes

If you’re looking for easy, no-recipe-needed Halloween treats, these creeped-out cupcakes are an eerily good choice. In one, a traditional frosted cupcake falls victim to a bat attack. In the other, they take a slimy, almost radioactive, turn.

Both ideas are from Matthew Mead’s “Monster Book of Halloween,” which is jammed with numerous ghastly treats and decorations.

VAMPIRE CUPCAKES

Bake up a batch of your favorite cupcake recipe or prepare a boxed mix according to package directions. Alternatively, most bakeries (even those in grocers) will sell unfrosted cupcakes if asked in case you want to do only the fun part — the decorating.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost them with white cake frosting.

Use black gel icing (the sort sold in tubes in the baking aisle) to draw a bat on top of each cupcake. If you need help with this, a template can be downloaded from Mead’s Web site at http://tinyurl.com/yeboobr. Cut out the template and use it as a stencil.

Use a toothpick to make two holes (bite marks) near each bat, then drizzle red gel icing into each.

GET SLIMED CUPCAKES

Prepare two packages of Jell-O Gelatin (any variety, though green and yellow are good) according to the package’s directions for Jigglers (two packages plus 2 cups boiling water). Divide the liquid between 6 flexible silicone baking cups.

Divide the remaining liquid between 6 round-bottomed teacups (this creates a domed top for each cupcake), filling each about 1/2-inch. Refrigerate everything for four hours, or until set.

To remove the gelatin from the cups, set the base of each in a bowl of warm water for about 10 seconds. Overturn the cups and gently pry out the cupcakes and dome tops. Invert a dome onto each cupcake, then decorate with gummy worms.

— Ideas adapted from Matthew Mead’s “Monster Book of Halloween,” Time Inc., 2009.