I cannot for the life of me remember which of my friends shared this special cupcake secret with me, but if you know who you are, I thank you. And I will now share it with the rest of you – that’s assuming, of course, that it is actually a secret and not one of those things everyone knew but me.

I thought when it came to visual appeal, cupcakes were all about the icing and toppings. But – and this is so simple I’m kind of embarrassed anyone had to point it out – simply dividing, coloring and layering the batter can make the actual cupcake the main attraction. Camille demonstrated this wonderfully in her last Cooking With Camille episode, in which she made red, white and blue cupcakes for the Fourth of July.

I needed to make a dessert for a Halloween party at our church tonight, and I do love cupcakes. This time, candy corn was my design inspiration.

I divided the cupcake batter into thirds, leaving one white and coloring one yellow and one orange. Then I layered and baked. The colors swirled a little more than I wanted so the cupcakes didn’t actually look like candy corn, but the colors are so festive that I didn’t care. My favorite homemade white icing and a few pieces of actual candy corn on top, and it was a winner.

Camille the Cat thought so too.