Husband took these to work and won a contest. I was so proud. I made the cupcakes the day ahead. But that's mostly because we made 3 treats in one night.
1 boxes (18 1/4-ounce) white cake mix
4 large egg whites
1 cup milk
1/3 cup canola oil
2 cans (16 ounces each) vanilla frosting
Decorations
18 marshmallows
4-inch lollipop sticks
Decorating pen (also at the cake shop, edible, awesome)
72 yogurt-covered mini-pretzels
Heat oven to 350˚. Line 18 regular size muffin cups with white liners.Beat cake mix, egg whites, milk and oil in large bowl with mixer on low speed 1 minute until blended; increase speed to medium and continue to beat 2 minutes or until batter is smooth. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.
Bake 20 to 22 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes before removing cupcakes to rack to cool completely. Frost cupcakes with vanilla frosting.
To decorate: Slightly flatten marshmallows with palm of your hand. Insert a lollipop stick into each marshmallow. With the black decorating pen, using photo as a guide, draw the skeleton face.
For each skeleton, carefully thread the stick end of the marshmallow head through the small hole of a pretzel, slowly twisting the pretzel from side to side as you push it up toward the head, stopping about 1/2 inch below the head. Secure the pretzel in position with a dab of frosting. Add 2 more pretzels, lining them up, to resemble the rib cage, securing with dabs of frosting. Stick the skeleton into the top of a cupcake. To make the arms, carefully cut a pretzel in half with a serrated knife and attach to the top rib with frosting as shown. I was able to cut many of the pretzels (very slowly and carefully) with a serrated knife. Hubby just chopped them with a big knife and didn't have many casualties. Repeat with remaining skeletons.
