Instructions

1. *To make pumpkin purée, pre-heat oven to 220°C / 200°C fan assisted. Cut the top of a butternut squash into thick slices (depending on the size of the butternut you’ll need between 5-6 slices).
2. Drizzle an oven safe dish or tray with a little bit of oil then arrange the butternut slices in a single layer. Brush the tops with a little bit of oil then cover and seal with a piece of tinfoil.
3. Roast in the oven until butternut is fork tender, about 45 minutes.
4. Once cooked, uncover and leave to cool completely. Once cooled, use a spoon to scoop the flesh away from the skin and into a bowl. Mash well with a fork then measure out 255g for the cupcakes.
5. For the cupcakes, pre-heat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan assisted. Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners.
6. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the wet ingredients with the sugar.
7. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk together just until smooth.
8. Divide the batter between the cupcake paper, each should be about 2/3 full, then bake in the pre-heated oven until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean and they spring back when lightly touched, between 25-28 minutes.
9. Leave to cool for about 10 minutes in the cupcake pan on a wire rack, then remove from the pan and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.
10. Once the cupcakes are cool, prepare the frosting.
11. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla (if using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment). The texture will start out crumbly, then will become smooth as you mix. Tip: If your butter was still a little bit chilled, you can pop the bowl in the microwave for about 10 seconds at a time just to soften a little bit more.
12. Once the butter is smooth and creamy, add the cream cheese (if using a stand mixer, change to a whisk attachment) and whisk together, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until completely combined and beautifully thick.
13. Set aside two spoonful’s of frosting, each spoonful in a small bowl.
14. Add orange gel food colouring to the bulk of the frosting and whisk until uniform in colour, you can add more colouring as needed. Spoon the orange frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a large plain piping nozzle. Tip: You may have to start with half of the frosting so that your bag isn’t over-filled and difficult to work with.
15. To one of the small bowls of frosting, whisk in brown gel colouring, to the other, colour with black gel colouring. Spoon the brown frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small star frosting tip. Spoon the black frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small plain frosting tip.
16. To decorate the cupcakes, pipe a parentheses ( ) with the orange frosting on the opposite edges of the cupcake. Then overlapping those, pipe another more closed parentheses (). Finally, pipe one stripe down the middle | to fill in the gap ((|)).
17. Pipe a small swirl or comma , at the top of the pumpkin, then for the face, use the black frosting to pipe two small triangles for eyes and a zigzag from left to right for the mouth.
18. Cupcakes will keep for about 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge.