A spooky Halloween cupcake recipe that’s not too scary, these White Chocolate Graveyard Cupcakes feature a spooky graveyard scene made of fondant perched on top of homemade white chocolate buttercream.

Halloween White Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Our family loves Halloween. I mean, we’ll celebrate any holiday but I don’t know many families that get as into Halloween as we do.

At the end of August, our Halloween tree goes up, and we start in on the spooky recipes and crafts.

Every year, I have a blast experimenting in the kitchen and coming up with delicious recipes to spread the Halloween love – like these White Chocolate Graveyard Cupcakes!

The inspiration for these cupcakes was a graveyard pudding with little Milano cookies as the tombstones. Milanos would be a super simple swap for this recipe and save you from having to make royal icing and fondant tombstones. If you’re crunched for time, or your tombstones don’t turn out as nice as you’d like, it might be a good idea to have a bag of Milanos on hand as a back-up!

Can these Halloween cupcakes be frozen? Yes, you can freeze the unfrosted cupcakes and the frosting separately, in ziplock freezer bags up to 3 months. When ready to use, simply bring to room temperature (the frosting will take about an hour) and then proceed with the decorating instructions below.

Check out our video on how to make white chocolate cupcakes (the ones in the video are from another white chocolate cupcake recipe on our site so the decorations differ, but the cupcake recipe is the same) and then don’t forget to scroll down to grab your free printable recipe:

White Chocolate Cupcake Ingredients

• Butter, room temperature
• White sugar
• Eggs, room temperature
• All-purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Hot coffee
• Milk

For the white chocolate frosting:

• Butter, room temperature
• Powdered icing sugar
• White chocolate
• Vanilla extract
• Milk, or cream
• Green food coloring <– this set of food coloring has lasted me forever and I love that it creates highly saturated colors with just a drop

For the graveyard decorations:

• Black fondant
• Orange fondant <– can use pumpkin candies
• White royal icing <– can make homemade or use pre-made
• Chocolate graham cracker crumbs

Scroll down to the printable recipe card for full measurements.

Tip: feel free to just use the decorating tips and skip the from-scratch white chocolate cupcakes and frosting.

Kitchen Tools You May Find Helpful

• Measuring spoons and cups
• Cupcake tin
• Three or more mixing bowls
• Electric mixer <– this is a great hand mixer if you don’t want to make the investment into a stand mixer
• Rolling pin
• Tombstone cookie cutter or sharp knife
• Piping bag <– a basic piping set will have all you need
• Offset spatula

How to Make White Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350F

Line a cupcake tray with your choice of cupcake liners. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for two minutes, until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs, and beat until mixed.

Place the flour in a small bowl and stir in the baking powder. Add half of the mixture to the batter and combine.

Add the hot coffee and beat to incorporate.

Add remaining half of the flour and beat to incorporate. Make sure you are scraping the sides of the bowl so you don’t have dry flour stuck to the sides.

Add the milk and beat well to combine.

Use a large cupcake scoop to portion out the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, filling each cupcake liner about 2/3 of the way full.

Bake for 18-22 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean and the cupcakes spring back when lightly tapped.

Cool the cupcakes on a cooling rack as you prepare the white chocolate frosting.

For the fondant decorations:

Roll out the black fondant and either use a tombstone cookie cutter to cut out the tombstones or use a sharp knife to freehand it.

Use premade royal icing to decorate the tombstone as you desire. (RIP, drawings, etc) You can also use a candy writer, white lustre dust, or skip this step.

Roll half tablespoon portions of the orange fondant into balls and use a chopstick or the dull edge of a butterknife to make indentations, as shown. Roll a small amount of the black fondant into a log and use as a pumpkin stem.

Set aside.

For the white chocolate frosting:

In a large bowl, combine the butter and powdered icing sugar. Beat with an electric mixer for at least two minutes until soft and pale.

In a small microwave-safe bowl (or a double boiler), melt the 1/2 cup white chocolate using the same method you used earlier. The chocolate doesn’t need to be completely melted, but it should be soft and have no hard pieces.

Use an electric mixer to combine the butter-sugar mixture with the melted white chocolate. Add the vanilla extract and cream, and adjust to achieve the perfect texture – either by adding more cream (softer) or powdered icing sugar (stiffer).

Scoop about 1/2 cup of the frosting into a separate container and dye with the green food coloring. Scoop into a piping bag and make a small snip on the tip. Set aside.

Use an offset spatula to add about 3 Tablespoons of frosting to each cupcake.

Sprinkle on the chocolate cookie crumbs lightly, add the tombstone and one or two pumpkins.

Use the green frosting to add a bit of grass around the tombstone and small vines onto the pumpkins.

Pin this Halloween Cupcake recipe:

Grab your free printable recipe card for our white chocolate cupcakes recipe:

These Halloween Graveyard Cupcakes would be perfect for a Halloween party or scary movie night. They are super simple to make and you can put out all of the decorating components for each person to decorate their cupcake as they wish!

For more fun Halloween dessert recipes, check out our Monster Meringue Cookies or our Cute Ghost Carrot Cake.

Check out our other Delicious Cupcake Recipes: