Spooky Halloween Spider Cupcakes

How to Make Spider Cupcakes with Candy Eyes & Oreos

Delight your Halloween party guests with this spooky batch of Halloween spider cupcakes topped with a chocolaty Oreo cookie! A simple yet impressive design that can be made with or without a metal piping tip—perfect for beginners. Learn how to decorate creepy, crawly spider cupcakes that are crave-ably cute!

Halloween Spider Cupcakes

Whether you’re a cupcake decorating pro or novice, these Halloween cupcakes are a blast to create—though they require some patience. You can use decorating bags and a small round piping tip if you have them. If you don’t, this design can also be made with just frosting, an offset spatula, and decorating gel for the spider legs.

Simply bake boxed cake mix into cupcakes or use your favorite homemade cupcake recipe, then frost them in the colors of your choice. Draw on spider legs using a piping tip or decorating gel, and finish with an adorable spider face made with an Oreo cookie and candy eyes. Quick as that, you’ve got Halloween spider cupcakes ready to serve and scare your guests!

How to Make Spider Cupcakes with Candy Eyes
Spooky Spider Cupcakes

Halloween Spider Cupcakes Ingredients

  • Cupcakes of Choice: You can make these spider cupcakes using boxed cake mix or your favorite homemade cupcake recipe, in whatever flavor that you want. Personally, I enjoy boxed cake mix and I like the convenience of it! Just remember boxed cake mix also requires oil and eggs, as listed on the package instructions.
  • Frosting: Feel free to decorate your spooky spiders in whatever color(s) of frosting that you like. For this batch, I alternated between white frosting and orange frosting so I could have some variety. If you’re using colors, I recommend sticking with premade frosting in the colors that you want—or you can create colors using white frosting and food coloring.
  • Chocolate Frosting: I used chocolate frosting and a small round piping tip to create the legs on my Halloween spider cupcakes. If you don’t have a small round piping tip, you can skip the chocolate frosting and use a tube of brown or black decorating gel instead.
  • Oreo Sandwich Cookies: Separate Oreo cookies from the crème to make your spider faces!
  • Candy Eyes: I recommend using regular/medium-sized candy eyes for your spiders’ eyes (rather than mini or large).

Cupcake Decorating Equipment

  • Cupcake Liners: Bake your Halloween spider cupcakes inside cupcake liners for easier and more festive serving!
  • Decorating Bags: Personally, I like to use decorating bags to distribute frosting onto my cupcakes more easily, but this is optional. However, if you want to pipe chocolate frosting onto the cupcakes to create your spider legs, you will need at least 1 decorating bag and a piping tip.
  • Offset Spatula: Whether you’re using decorating bags or not, you’ll need a regular or large offset spatula to spread the frosting evenly across your cupcakes. (If you aren’t using decorating bags, just use the spatula to spread frosting straight from the tub.) Other workable tools include a spreader knife or butter knife.
  • Small Round Piping Tip: To draw on my spiders’ legs, I used a small round icing tip #4. If you don’t have the same exact tip, you can use a different tip that’s similar in size/shape. Or, if you don’t have any piping tips, use decorating gel to draw on the legs instead.
Spread frosting evenly onto cooled cupcakes.
Spread frosting evenly onto cooled cupcakes.
Onto a single Oreo cookie, use dots of icing as glue to stick on 2 candy eyes.
Onto a single Oreo cookie, use dots of icing as glue to stick on 2 candy eyes.
Using chocolate frosting and a small round piping tip (or black decorating gel), draw 8 spider legs onto each cupcake—starting from the outside and meeting in the middle.
Using chocolate frosting and a small round piping tip (or decorating gel), draw 8 spider legs onto each cupcake—starting from the outside and meeting in the middle.
Place Oreo spider face in the middle of each cupcake, pressing gently to stick.
Place Oreo spider face in the middle of each cupcake, pressing gently to stick.

How to Make Spider Cupcakes for Halloween

  • Bake boxed cake mix according to package directions (or homemade cupcake recipe). Allow to cool completely before decorating, for at least 1 hour.
  • Frost cupcakes. Once cooled, spread frosting color(s) of choice evenly onto cupcakes. You can use an offset spatula to spread frosting straight from the tub, or use a decorating bag to distribute frosting and then spread using a spatula.
  • Make spider toppers. Separate Oreo cookies from crème so you have 24 individual cookies. Glue 2 candy eyes onto each Oreo using a dot or smudge of icing as glue.
  • Draw spider legs. Add chocolate frosting to a decorating bag with a small round piping tip (#4). (Or, if you don’t have a piping tip, use decorating gel.) Draw 8 spider legs onto each cupcake, starting from the outside and meeting in the middle—like drawing cat whiskers.
  • Assemble cupcakes. Finish assembling Halloween spider cupcakes by placing Oreo spider face onto the center of each cupcake.
  • Serve spooky cupcakes on a platter and enjoy!
Halloween Spider Cupcakes

More Easy Halloween Cupcake Ideas:

To see how these spider cupcakes are made, watch my Last-Minute Halloween Cupcakes video!

Halloween Spider Cupcakes

Halloween Spider Cupcakes

Delight Halloween party guests with a spooky batch of Halloween spider cupcakes – topped with an Oreo cookie and candy eyes! How to decorate spider cupcakes for a creepy, crawly crave-ably cute Halloween treat.
5 stars (2 ratings)

Ingredients

Cupcakes

  • 24 cupcakes of choice, (I prepared 1 box vanilla cake mix)
  • 1 tub white or orange frosting*, (or 1 of each!)
  • 1 tub chocolate frosting, (or 1 tube brown or black decorating gel)
  • 12 Oreo sandwich cookies, separated
  • 48 candy eyes, regular/medium-sized

Decorating Equipment

Instructions 

Cupcakes

  • Bake cupcakes in cupcake liners, according to package directions. (Or bake homemade cupcakes of choice.) Allow to cool completely.

Frosting

  • Spread frosting evenly onto the cupcakes—either using a decorating bag, or straight from the tub using an offset spatula.
  • To use a decorating bag, add white or orange frosting into a decorating bag (no metal tip needed). Cut off the pointed end of the bag so you can squeeze out the frosting. (Use 2 separate decorating bags if you want to use 2 different colors on your cupcakes!)
  • Squeeze frosting onto cupcakes, then spread evenly with an offset spatula.

Spider Toppers

  • Separate Oreo cookies from the crème, so you’ve got 24individual cookies.
  • Add chocolate icing into a decorating bag with a small round icing tip (I used Wilton tip #4). Squeeze 2 dots of icing onto an Oreo cookie as ‘glue,’ then stick on 2 candy eyes to make your spider face. (Or simply spread icing onto back of candy eyes and stick them onto the Oreo.)

Spider Legs & Assembly

  • Use bag of chocolate icing (or decorating gel) to draw 8 spider legs onto each cupcake, starting from the outside and moving inward. (This will look a bit like drawing cat whiskers. Don’t worry about making it perfect—the Oreo will cover the center!)
  • Place an Oreo spider face in the center of each cupcake to finish assembly. Repeat until all spider cupcakes are assembled.
Did you make this recipe?Share a photo and tag us @mindovermunch — we can’t wait to see what you’ve made!