Cake with Ice Cream Ghosts

These mini cupcakes are a lot of fun to eat, but if you are a perfectionist and don’t like it when things don’t go your way, don’t do the ice cream part. Use frosting. Make your favorite cupcake recipe and bake in mini-tartlet pan using paper liners. let cool. Dip each in bittersweet chocolate ganache and let firm up. Top with ghost–and serve.

The ghosts are made from homemade Philadelphia Style ice cream. Freeze the ice cream until it is quite thick and could hold shape. Quickly put it into a pastry bag fitted with a tip with a 1/4″ round hole. Pipe the ice cream onto a sheet pan, lined with parchment and immediately put it in the freezer for 4 hours. Remove the ghosts and pipe the chocolate eyes and mouth and return to the freezer. Let freeze overnight. Just before serving, use an offset spatula to move the ice cream from the sheet pan to the mini-cupcakes.
Take your bow, then eat.
If you choose to use frosting rather than ice cream….you can either pipe the ghosts directly on to the cupcake, or you can pipe them on to a sheet-pan, put them in the fridge for an hour or so, decorate with chocolate ganache, and then transfer by offset spatula to the cupcakes