Looking for a spooky start to your mornings--preferably one that incorporates even more tea into your morning meal than your morning cup alone? Looking for a fun project to do with your favorite little boys and ghouls?

Blueberry matcha graveyard muffins just might fit the bill.

Supplies

Blueberry muffin supplies. For mine, I used a Betty Crocker's mix, but you could use any blueberry muffin recipe you want.

2 tablespoons of Matcha . I used traditional, but if you wanted that extra blueberry punch, you could use our blueberry matcha too.

Fresh blueberries (optional)

Cardstock paper

Colored pencils

Pens

Muffin tin

Muffin cups

Knife

Butter/toppings (optional)

Instructions

Step 1

Preheat the oven according to your recipe and place muffin cups into your muffin tin.
This time of year, you can find Halloween muffin cups at your local grocery or craft store. This is a great extra touch if you're making these for a party.

Step 2

Prepare the batter.

Follow your blueberry muffin recipe as you normally would, adding the matcha powder when you mix the dry ingredients. Make sure the matcha is well incorporated before you add the wet ingredients to ensure an even color.

Step 3

Spoon the batter into the cups.

Bonus tip: You can add the fresh blueberries into the batter when you add the wet ingredients, but if you want to keep them close to the surface of your muffin (they leak juice when they heat in the oven, which can add bubbly blue streaks to your 'graveyards'), simply drop them onto the top of your muffins once they're in the cups, using a spoon to cover them with a thin layer of batter after to keep them secure. This also ensures even ratios of fresh blueberries per muffin.

Step 4

Bake muffins according to your recipe.

Step 5

Make your decorations.

For mine, I made tombstones out of cardstock as well as individualized decorations for each one, from a black cat to bones to reaching zombie hands. Really, whatever you want to do works! Just make sure to leave extra paper at the bottom of your shapes to stick into the muffin itself (or, if you want double-sided decorations, you could fold them around a toothpick). If you're using colored pencils, try using pen to exaggerate any details you don't want getting lost, such as on the hands and cat below.

Bonus tip: Since I wasn't making a lot of these, I was able to do this between when the muffins started baking and when they were cooling, but if you are doing a lot of decorations, you may want to prepare these in advance.

Step 6

Add your decorations to the muffins.

After your muffins have cooled, use a knife to poke holes for your decorations. Push the paper into the slots.

Step 7

Enjoy!

Take a selfie with your masterpiece, take it to a Halloween party, add your favorite glaze or other toppings, and enjoy!

Bonus Tips/Variations to try

1. This time of year, your local cake decorating, grocery, or craft store may have pre-made decorations you can use or other tools to help, such as sugar tombstones or bones; cookie cutters with spooky shapes; creepy paper; or plastic skeletons, bats, and spiders.

2. Customize your tombstones. Funny puns, fancy calligraphy, or even--for the truly macabre--the names of your party guests can add an extra dash of frightful fun to your decorating. The same goes for extra accents like zombie hands and bones. Add a watch to an undead wrist, add your favorite ghost dog from your favorite Halloween/Christmas crossover claymation film, or go the other direction and make everything super cute. It's really up to you!

3. Not a fan of muffins or looking for a project where you can really let your decorating skills loose? Add two tablespoons of matcha powder to your favorite cupcake recipe (again, you can use traditional, or try one of our other flavors, such as chocolate, blueberry, cinnamon apple, or raspberry) and use frosting, cookies, candy, or other seasonal treats to decorate your growing graveyard.

4. Add a glaze. Though part of the joy of these tea treats is the beautiful matcha color for the 'ground' if you're looking for a way to sweeten the cauldron on these boo-tiful treats, try adding a glaze. Want the best of both worlds? Add a little matcha powder to the glaze (again, mix it in with the dry ingredients first) to maintain some of that same pretty color.

5. Not crazy for matcha, but love muffins? There are tons of great muffin recipes on our TeaChef site, including fun fall flavors such as Apple Muffins with a Dragonwell Glaze, Scrumptious Carrot Apple Oolong Muffins, Chocolatey Chai Muffins, or, for those who want to double down on berry goodness, Genmai Cha Berry Best Muffins. Swap those out for the base and use food coloring, a glaze, or frosting to add the green for the ground.

6. Swap out the fruit. Since we also have cinnamon apple, peach, and raspberry matcha, even if blueberry doesn't float your boat, maybe a different fruity combination will.

So there you have it! A super easy, quick project for you and the kids, Halloween parties, or even just to bring in to the office. Give them a try and let us see the results of your mad lab on Facebook or Twitter. Have other tea recipes (muffin or otherwise) to add to our collection? Share them on TeaChef for the chance to be featured here!