Twilight Party: The Cupcakes & Favors

For Rae's party, we made the cupcakes ourselves. Actually, Raegan did! We used a white cake mix, strawberry pie filling, and cream cheese frosting.

To make:

Make the cake mix up according to the directions. Fill cupcake liners about 1/3 of the way. The bottom should be fully covered in a thin layer of cake mix. Spoon pie filling into the liners- the filling shouldn't touch the sides of the liner at all, or it'll seep out the sides later! Cover with more cake batter until it's covered, and the liner is filled to the right amount!

Bake as normal. Let them cool, then frost. To add the vampire bites, we used a small straw to poke holes in the top, then another straw to drizzle the Strawberry glaze left from the pie filling into the holes, and dragged it downward. The end result? Cupcakes that look like a vampire took a bite! Very tasty! You could use any red pie filling or even red jelly for this!

For the party favors, my step mom came to the rescue! She found bags of red slime that looked like bags of blood! So cute! She sent them to us with the banner. She also made magnets from those clear, flat sided marbles, both large and small. They each had  a smiling vampire mouth on them.

Easy "Gourmet" Cupcakes

Recently, I saw a photo in a magazine ad for canned pie filling. It was a cupcake, cut in half, with cherry pie filling sort of oozing out of it.

I thought it looked easy enough, and went to the pie filling website to find a recipe- only to find none! I was kind of surprised by that, since they used it as an advertising ploy.

After looking around online, I came to the conclusion that they are as easy as "pie" to make. Since then, I've made numerous batches, and always get complimented on my "Gourmet" cupcakes, and asked for more! The basic recipe is simple.

Gourmet Filled Cupcakes

What You'll Need:
Cupcake Pan
Cupcake Liners
1 Box of prepared Cake mix, unbaked
1 can of pie filling
1 can of frosting

• Simply prepare the cake batter according to the directions. Fill the liners about 1/3rd of the way, enough to cover the bottom with a decent layer of batter.
• Next, scoop some pie filling into the center of each cupcake, taking care not to get it too close to the edges. Last, cover the pie filling with more cake batter.
• Bake according to the directions on the cake mix. Once they've cooled, frost, and serve!

You will want to kind of match the various pie fillings with the cake & frosting flavors. Here are some I have tried, which went over well.

• Blueberry Pie Filling with Vanilla Cake & Vanilla Frosting
• Cherry Pie Filling with German Chocolate Cake & Vanilla Frosting
• Cherry & Blueberry Pie Filling (left over from the previous 2 batches!) with White Cake & Vanilla Frosting
• Strawberry Pie Filling with Yellow Cake & Strawberry Frosting
• Raspberry Pie Filling with White Cake & Vanilla Frosting
• Apple Pie Filling with Spice Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting
• Apple Pie Filling, drizzled with Caramel Ice Cream Sauce, with Spice Cake & spread with Caramel Topping instead of Frosting.

The various combinations are endless! I imagine in the summer, a Strawberry Lemon mix would taste great together!

These make about 26-30 cupcakes, depending on how filling the fruit is. They make for a fantastic addition to a party, reunion, or just as a special treat. My husband took quite a few in to work, and my neighbor is constantly asking for more!