Bake up a scare for Halloween with candy-corn cupcakes

As one of Halloween's most iconic candies, candy corn seemed worthy of a makeover. After all, we've seen the candy mixed into cookie dough, sprinkled over ice cream, worked into brownies and blondies, even used to infuse vodka for a very adult tricky treat.

But we hadn't seen candy corn reworked as a cupcake, so we decided to give it a try. No actual candy corn is harmed in the making of this recipe. But there would be nothing stopping you from sprinkling a few over the white frosting.

To get these cupcakes to bake up with clear distinctions between the yellow and orange layers of the cake, the recipe uses a pound cake batter, rather than a traditional (and lighter) yellow cake batter. The result is a rich and hearty cupcake.

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Start to finish: 2 hours (45 minutes active)

Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1⁄2 teaspoon orange extract

4 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoon heavy cream

Yellow and orange gel food coloring

Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 325 F. Lightly coat the cups of a muffin tin with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together butter and sugar. Beat for 5 minutes, until very light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and orange extracts.

In a liquid measuring cup with a pour spout, beat together whole eggs, yolks and cream. With mixer on medium-high, a bit at a time pour eggs into butter-sugar mixture. This should take about 5 minutes.

Using a spoon or silicone spatula, gently but thoroughly fold flour mixture into butter and egg mixture.

Divide batter into 2 bowls, one having slightly more batter than the other. Add several drops of yellow food coloring to the bowl with slightly more batter, then gently mix in until evenly colored. Repeat using orange coloring for the second bowl of batter.

Divide orange batter among cups of prepared muffin tin.

Transfer yellow batter to a medium zip-close bag. Snip off one corner, then gently squeeze (pipe) batter over orange batter in each cup, creating 2 layers of colored cake. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted at the centre comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.

Once cupcakes have cooled, prepare frosting. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together butter, sugar and milk until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla and beat to combine.

To finish cupcakes, overturn them so the bottoms face up. If the tops are too rounded for them to sit flat once overturned, they can be trimmed with a serrated knife.

Transfer frosting to a zip-close bag. Cut off one corner of the bag, then squeeze the frosting into a slightly pointed mound on top of each cupcake.

Makes 16.