Poison Apple Cupcakes

Instructions

Cupcakes:

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• In the bowl of a mixer, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• Add in the eggs and mix.
• Add in the milk, oil and vanilla; mix until everything is combined. Mix for 2-3 minutes.
• Mix in the boiling water. (Batter will be very VERY thin!)
• Line a muffin/cupcake tin with liners.
• Fill each cupcake liner with a little less than 1/4 cup of batter. (About 2/3s of the way full)
• Bake for 18 minutes or until done. Cool Completely.

Frosting:

• Pour melted butter into the bowl of a mixer.
• Mix in the cocoa.
• Add in 3 cups of powered sugar. Mix well.
• Add in 1/3 cup of milk and mix well.
• Add in the rest of the powered sugar and mix well.
• Add in the rest of the milk and mix well. Stir in vanilla.
• To make the frosting thicker add more powdered sugar.
• To make the frosting thinner add more milk.

How to make the mini Poison Apples:

• Take some of the cooled cupcakes and crumble them into a bowl. Mix in about a tablespoon of frosting. Mix well.
• You're looking for the constancy of play dough, add a little more frosting if needed but don't make it too soggy. 
• Roll tablespoon size balls of dough into ball/apple shapes. Pop them into the freezer for about 20 minutes. 
• Once chilled, melt red candy melts according to package directions. Dip each cake ball into the melted candy melts, tap off excess and set on a piece of foil or parchment paper to harden. 
• It doesn't matter if they're smooth, you're going to cover most of it with green "poison". 
• I can normally cover about 12 apples with 12 ounces of red candy melts.
• Adding The Poison to the Poison Apples:
• Now, it's time to add the green poison drip to the apples. 
• Melt the green candy melts according to the package directions. I normally only do half of the bag at a time with the green because you don\'t want it all to harden in the piping bag while you\'re working on them. 
• Fill a piping bag, fitted with a small #2 tip, with the green candy melts. Piping 2 circles and a upside down tear drop onto the front of the \"apple\". This will be the eyes and nose. .
• Next, pipe some drips around the apple and fill in the top half of the apple with the green candy melts. 
• Add some green candy melts to a brown  sprinkle and stick it on top for the stem. 
• Let them sit for about 10 minutes or so until the candy melts harden. 

Assemble Cupcakes:

• Starting off with the chocolate cupcakes, use a small knife and carefully cut out a plug of cake from the center of the cupcake. 
• Now spoon in some caramel dip!
• Then pop the plug of cupcake back and close up that caramel center.  Next, spread on a thin layer of frosting. 
• Pour the Halloween sprinkles into a bowl and dip the cupcake into the sprinkles. 
• Filling a piping bag, fitted with a large star tip, with the chocolate frosting and pipe a swirl onto the center of the cupcake. Add a Poison Apple to each cupcake.