Scary Spider Cupcakes

A friend hired me to make several batches of cupcakes for a Halloween party she was organizing for a group of 3 year-olds. She has just moved into a new house and I was afraid of doing anything with colored icing as little hands are apt to get everywhere, especially when they are covered in colorful, creamy cupcake frosting!
I was inspired to make these spooky spiders after seeing a similar batch on the M&M/Mars website. For these, I made just plain old vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. They were then coated in chocolate sprinkles. I used black licorice for legs, half marshmallows with Smarties for eyes and candy corn for fangs.
Apparently, these were a big hit with the American moms and their kids. The French were a little harder to convince -- cupcakes are virtually unknown in France, as is the tradition of celebrating Halloween by the way -- and some seemed "spooked" by these little guys. Luckily, the delicious taste of these mini cakes made up for the "fear factor" and Halloween became a little little less scary for some this year!