Cupcake 10 - Eerie Eyeballs.

Cupcake Name:
Eerie Eyeballs


And this is how it went down:

Both the cake and the frosting is vanilla. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any powered white food colouring to make the frosting a better colour but I think it worked out alright.

Confession time... I didn’t follow the recipe for this one at all. Because I’m only making one or two cupcakes of each kind at a time, it didn’t seem practical or economical for me to make the eyeballs the way Lily made them, though would like to make them one day in the future. She makes them out of gelatine and coconut milk but I made mine from white icing. I just rolled them into spheres and then using blue and black food dye, I painted on the irises.





The worms are made from marzipan and copper food dye. I just formed them into worm shapes and created a bit of texture on them using a knife.



The rest was pretty simple, just placing the eyeballs and worms around the cake!




Wins:
• The eyeballs and worms look pretty great.
• The cake is numcity.

Fails:
• Not much. They’re pretty cool!

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• I’d really like to try to make the eyeballs using gelatine and coconut milk. They look great and I bet the texture is more eyeball-esque.

Cupcake 9 - Crazy Crabs

Cupcake Name:
Crazy Crabs

And this is how it went down:
This is my most favourite one yet! They’re so so so cute! And not all that difficult to create! The cake is Red Velvet Cake and there is also a tiny bit of vanilla frosting used on this cake. It is mostly made with marzipan.



Taking a small piece, I kneaded a few drops of red food colouring into the marzipan until the colour was completely even. I then covered my board in icing sugar and rolled out a thin layer of the red marzipan. Using a knife, I cut a crab like shell out of the marzipan and then rolled the rest up into 2 balls and shaped them into claws.

I put a spoonful of frosting onto the cake and then laid the crab shell over the top. I lifted the sides of the shell and tucked the claws underneath. Then, using my icing pens, I placed to dots of white and black onto the cake for eyes. Finally, to make the shell and the claws nice and shiny, I painted them with a mix of vanilla extract and salmon coloured lustre dust.





Wins:
• Pretty much everything. These cakes look the closest to Lily’s so far...

Fails:
• Nothing. Love them!


What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• Nothing. I think they’re perfection!

Cupcake 8 - Mutant Ears

Cupcake Name:
Mutant Ears

And this is how it went down:
This one was really easy to make. Like, super easy. The cake is Red Velvet Cake and the frosting is of the deliciously evil vanilla kind.



So, I thought a normal ear is kinda boring even for a cupcake. As I am a complete geek and love Star Trek, I decided to make a Vulcan ear. On a clean, icing sugar covered surface, I kneaded ivory food colouring into a small piece of marzipan until it was completely mixed in. From here, I shaped it into a Vulcan shaped ear using my hands and the other end of my paint brush.



When the ear was finished being molded, I placed it on top of the frosted cupcake.



Wins:
• Vulcan ears. Geeky deliciousness.
• Cake = Numcity.
• Frosting = Also numcity

Fails:
• None, apart from icky tasting marzipan!

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• Nothing. I don’t think I could actually do any more with this one.

Cupcake 7 - Sweeney Todd's Surprise

Cupcake Name:
Sweeney Todd’s Surprise

And this is how it went down:
The cupcake is Lily’s red velvet cake which is absolutely delicious and is one of my new favourite flavours. The colour is so amazing. This batch is again only made with 3 table spoons of red food colouring but I still think it looks brilliant.



This cake is made using marzipan. Now marzipan is awesome. It is great for creating shapes and and array of different 3D objects but it tastes horrible! That aside, this cake is awesome. I love Sweeney Todd so I had a lot of fun with this one.

Firstly, I rolled out a large circle of marzipan to act as the top of the pie. I added a large spoonful of vanilla frosting to the tip of the cake and then draped the marzipan over it. Then, I rolled the edges over to create a ‘crust’ around the ‘pie’ and using a knife, I created indents around the crust.



Using ivory food colouring and a paint brush, I painted the ‘pie crust’ to give it a well baked look. I then dusted the top with copper luster dust. With a sharp knife, I cut a small but deep triangular hole in the centre of the ‘pie’.



Using two small balls of marzipan, I rolled out two finger-like shapes and then created the look of a real finger by drawing fingernails and knuckle creases in with a toothpick. Then with a paintbrush, I pained the fingernails with pink food die.
To finish the cake off, I inserted the marzipan finger into the pie (Hahaha, yes, have a good chuckle as this sentence!) and using the cherry sauce that has been used in previous cakes, I dripped it down the pie and put a little amount on the end of the second finger to lay next to the pie cake.




Wins:
• Marzipan is brilliant. I was going to use white icing again but I decided to try marzipan and I’m very impressed with it even though it tastes disgusting!
• Ivory colouring makes a convincing pie colour, especially mixed with the luster dust.
• The fingers look cool!

Fails:
• None!

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• Work a tiny bit more with the crust!

Cupcake 6 - Shattered Glass

Cupcake Name:
Shattered Glass

And this is how it went down:
This was one of the ones I was most excited about making. It seemed very technical but it was actually quite simple to create. I used the last of the chocolate cupcake batch to create this morbid sweet treat.

So, according to Lily, Sugar Glass is what they use in the movies instead of real glass. It’s safer and smashes in almost the same way – which is good for the actors and the movie go-er, no loss of action or actors. It is also pretty tasty. To make it, I mixed sugar, water, glucose syrup and cream of tartar in a saucepan until it boiled... That isn’t all though... you have to concentrate kinda hard for the next part. You need a candy thermometer – see, technical – and you must leave it in the saucepan AND stir at the same time AS WELL AS keeping your eye on the temperature. At first, I didn’t think it was working. To make hard snap candy, you have to get the mixture to reach 150 degrees C (which I think is maybe 300ish degrees F) and for a long while (okay, it was like 5 minutes) it was sitting at about 110C. But then, it started bubbling and boiling up like what I imagine lava would look like but obviously not red and a hell of a lot cooler. The temperature rose fairly quickly and got to 150C in about 15 minutes.



From here, I quickly poured the sugar mixture into a aluminium foil lined tray that had been greased with canola oil. Then, I waited...



After about an hour, the candy had become rock hard and had cooled completely. This was where the fun part began – smashing it with a meat tenderiser! And, it totally smashes like real glass!



I frosted the cakes with Vanilla frosting – but again the humidity is around 70% tonight so it started to melt as soon as I took it out of the fridge, I think I’m going to make a much thicker mixture to stop this from happening. However, the melty-ness kinda worked for this cake.

I then stuck a few good shards into each cake and then dripped on my cherry sauce mixture that was used on both Dracula’s Bites and Blood-Stained-Brains. Due to the heat, the sauce just slid right off and pooled at the base of the cake and onto the board they were sitting on, which looked really gruesome and cool.





Wins:
• The candy! I’m so excited that I made candy that actually snapped like it was supposed to. I love my candy thermometer a lot!
• Of course, the cake is full of amazement and deliciousness.
• Just the whole look of it. So disgusting and bloody. I love it.\

Fails:
• Frosting, even though this time around the runny effect looked cool.

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• Made more chocolate cakes to use all the candy shards I have! What am I going to do with a container full of Sugar Glass?!

Cupcake 5 - Day of the Dead Skulls

Cupcake Name:
Day of the Dead Skulls

And this is how it went down:
These cupcakes are the hardest I’ve made so far. They’re made using chocolate cupcakes and they are covered in fondant (well, in this case – white icing). Firstly Using a knife, I cut two ‘eye sockets’ out of the cakes. Then, with the rolled out white icing, I covered the cupcakes. This was the hard part. It was difficult to prevent holes, especially when I was attempting to tuck it into the ‘eye sockets’. It was also hard to make a skull shape out of round cupcakes. I’m not sure how Lily did it but perhaps fondant is easier to mould into that kind of shape than white icing.








I attempted to use home-made coloured frosting to decorate these skulls but it was way too runny and my decorating pen wasn’t holding well, so I had to use the couple of icing pens I had – in glitter black and plain red. I wish I had more colours because I could have made them look so awesome.



I used little sugar hearts, flowers, cachous to decorate the skulls, sticking them down with confectioner’s glue (which is awesome!). I’m not overly happy with them. They look like a 5 year old has made them but I guess that was kinda the look they have anyway.

Wins:
• The cake.
• Confectioner’s glue is brilliant!
• The flowers, sugar hearts and cachous were fun to use to decorate.
• They kinda look like a retarded version of Lily’s.

Fails:
• White icing, why do you fail me?!
• Home-made frosting. Why couldn’t I have more coloured icing pens on hand!?

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• I might like to do these over again at the end of the challenge. They’re really fun to make but I will attempt to get fondant and more coloured icing pens to make really good ones!

Cupcake 4 - Rotten Ragworms

Cupcake Name:
Rotten Ragworms

And this is how it went down:
I made a batch of Lily’s chocolate cupcakes and used four for this recipe. Um, wow. These cupcakes are honestly the yummiest things I’ve ever eaten. They’re super moist (there is that word again!) and tasty! I’ve never made chocolate (or any) cupcakes with sour cream before but if it makes them taste like that I’ll be adding it to all my batters!



The frosting is Lily’s delicious Vanilla frosting which is made with double cream. I always used to make my frosting with just butter, icing sugar and a bit of milk, but the cream just takes away that buttery taste (which I really dislike).



So, the worms. They call for chestnut and black food colouring. I couldn’t find any chestnut food colouring and the best I could get was ivory. I added a drop of black and a tsp of cocoa powder to make the white icing (I also didn’t have fondant but had two packets of white icing – I’m a student and have donated my last dollars to the QLD flood relief so, I thought this would do) it as dark as I could, which wasn’t that dark at all!



I used Copper luster dust to paint the worms to give them a shiny appearance and to make them a little darker. Using a fork, I created a bit of texture around the outside so they looked less like snakes! The worms were then placed on top of the frosted cakes.





Wins:
• The cake is perfection.
• Luster dust is amazing. I didn’t think it would look that great. I love it!
• The worms look kinda worm-like?

Fails:
• Colour of the worms.
• Size of the worms.


What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• Find Chesnut colouring and use fondant. Honestly though, I’m not a cake decorator and I think I’m doing a pretty alright job considering the money, time and resources I have!
• I’d make the worms a tiny bit smaller so they didn’t look like more like snakes!

Baking Update

After a much needed break from sugar and cream, I've been very busy in the kitchen baking up the next few cupcakes for the challange. At the rate I'm going, I should complete the challange within a month instead of the two that I set for myself!

The next cupcakes up with be: Rotten Ragworms, Day of the Dead Skulls and Shattered Glass! Stay tuned, my faithful ghouls. x

Cupcake 3 - Dracula's Bite

Cupcake Name:
Dracula’s Bite

And this is how it went down:
The cakes were from the same batch of Red Velvet cake that was made for the Blood-Stained Brains. I’ve decided that I’m going to just make one batch of cupcakes at a time and divide them up into 3 groups so that I don’t end up with 12-16 of each kind. That way, I won’t die from a sugar over-dose. I am a complete cake fiend - if it is in my house, I will devour it... so I think using one batch instead of 3 will keep me from developing diabetes.



Moving on! This was a pretty easy little cake to make. The frosting is a cream-cheese frosting which is absolutely delish! A little bit of milk, vanilla, icing sugar, butter and cream-cheese = heaven. I covered the cakes with a thick layer to give me a good base for creating my vampire bites.




The bites are made from pomegranate seeds/pulp and the same cherry sauce that stained the previously mentioned brains. The pomegranate seeds/pulp really work with this cake – they’re sweet and work well against the tartness of the frosting AND they really pop in your mouth when you bite into them, so they have a great texture in comparison to the fluffy frosting and the moist cake (I really hate using the word moist, but that is exactly what it was!)





I have this great little decorating pen from CuisiPro, a fantastic European company that make brilliant cooking gadgets and utensils. I highly recommend it as it’s been so useful in this challenge already! I used this draw the ‘blood’ dripping down from the ‘bite marks’ on the cakes. (I also have their Cupcake Corer and Decorating Set – Just as brilliant!





Wins:
• Again, the cake itself is fantastic and the colour is sublime (Okay, so sublime might be a little full on for the colour of cupcakes but come on – They’re red cupcakes! Awesome
• The frosting is the most delicious and amazing frosting in the entire world.
• Pomegranates = win.

Fails:
• I’m actually pretty happy with how these turned out, so no major fails this round.

What I’d do different if I had my time over:
• The cherry sauce could have been better, but we’ve been through this already.
• They could have been a tiny bit bigger but that wasn’t a huge problem.

Cupcake 2 - Blood Stained Brains.

Cupcake Name:
Blood-Stained Brains


And this is how it went down:
Red Velvet Cake... I’ve wanted to make this for a while but have never gotten around to it. Many recipes in this book call for it so I decided to make up one batch to use for different cupcakes and Bloody-Stained Brains is one of them! The cake is pretty easy to make. It called for 4 tablespoons of red food colouring but I only had 3 – the colour still looks amazing. It also called ingredients I’ve never used in a cupcake before like buttermilk and cider vinegar.



I didn’t follow the frosting recipe at all to be honest. I had a little vanilla frosting left from the rainbow cupcakes, so I topped it up with more cream and sugar and made my own version. I added red and black food colouring to the mixture get a nice human-organ colour.



I made the cakes super small, so I used a very small piping tip to create the brain matter pattern on the top of the cakes. I did a few layers of the mixture to give it dimension. Then, using my cool sauce/frosting pen, I syringed a thick cherry sauce into the gaps for a delicious blood-stained effect.







Wins:

• The cake is so nice. It’s not overly sweet and the colour is amazing.
• The frosting and the cherry sauce look awesomely brain-like. Disgusting and delicious!


Fails:

• Used too much cornflour in the cherry sauce so it’s a tiny bit too thick and has lost a bit of the cherry flavour.

What I’d do differently if I had my time over:

• I’d made the cakes a tiny bit bigger.
• Not use so much cornflour!!



Buffy, Anne Rice, True Blood and Twilight fans - Stay tuned for the next cupcake!