Cooking with Kids (Halloween): Easy Spider Cupcakes

The month of October turns into one big giant sugar fest for our family. Two of the kids have birthdays this month, which means that in addition to the normal sugary treats of October, we also end up making cupcakes, cookies, and birthday cakes to celebrate their birthdays.

This past week was a particularly crazy one for me, so when it came time to make treats for my son to share with his first grade class, I ended up just showing the three younger kids (9, 7, & 4-years-old) the pattern from the Taste of Home magazine, and let them go to town decorating the cupcakes completely by themselves (with strict instructions not to lick the knife).

They were as simple as could be for them to do and turned out completely adorable. I only wish I had thought to take a few pictures of the process....

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The ingredients:
Oreo cookies (1 per cupcake)
Shoestring licorice, cut to about 3-inches long (the original recipe called for black, but our store didn't sell black and my kids don't like it anyway, so we used the red)
Orange or chocolate frosting
M & M's (2 per cupcake)
Cupcakes, baked in muffin papers

Directions: 
Generously frost the cupcakes with orange frosting.  (this is a fun job for the kids to do themselves, but if you're worried about mess, you can have them pre-frosted)

Cut shoestring licorice into 3-inch segments and separate.

Place 4 segments on each side of the cupcake opposite each other (pressing them lightly into the frosting) .

Press Oreo gently in the middle of the cupcake (covering the tops of the legs).

Dip each M & M into a little frosting, then place on the Oreo to be the eyes.

Now that's a spider you won't have to squash!

Enjoy!


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