Tom had a scary foods dinner party for Halloween. I made Death by Chocolate Cupcakes following a modified version of a Mississippi Mud Cake recipe taken from the July 2000 issue of Bon Apetite:

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Death By Chocolate Cupcakes

For Cupcakes:

• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons whipping cream
• 6 tablespoons dark corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin pan. Whisk sugar, flour, baking soda and salt in large bowl to blend. Whisk milk, butter and cocoa powder in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat just until butter melts and mixture is smooth. Remove saucepan from heat. Whisk cocoa mixture, then eggs and vanilla into dry ingredients. Pour batter into cup cake pan. sprinkle with 1 cup chocolate chips. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20-22 minutes. Cool cup cakes in pan. Meanwhile, bring whipping cream and corn syrup to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Add remaining 1 1/3 cups chocolate chips. Whisk until chocolate chips have melted and glaze is smooth. Cool glaze 15 minutes. Pour glaze evenly over cake. Chill for about half an hour.

For the Monster Cupcake:

This is easy. You need two pieces of candy to resemble eyes (or one for a cyclops), one piece of “mouth” gummy (see picture below), a gummy bear and red sprinkles. Place eyes and mouth on the cup cake, then place the gummy bear inside the mouth. You might want to behead the gummy bear first. Use red sprinkles around/inside the mouth - this is ‘blood’.

For the Mummy Cupcake:

Warm a piece of liquorice allsorts (use the round kind) in the microwave for 5 seconds. You just want to warm it so that when you slice it in half it won’t crack. Once you take it out of the microwave, carefully slice it in half and place the two pieces in the middle of the cupcake. These are the mummy’s eyes. Melt a couple marshmellows in the microwave (use defrost option) until it is of spreadable consistency. It cools quickly, so you might have to work quickly (or remelt). Alternatively, you could use marshmellow fluff. Starting from the bottom of the cupcake, use a spoon to spread the marshmellows from left to right. Start the next ‘bandage’ above the first, slightly overlapping, making sure that there is minimal cup cake visible. Be careful not to spread the two layers together, otherwise your cup cake won’t look like it’s being wrapped in bandages. Continue all the way to the top, making sure not to cover up the eyes.

For Graveyard Cup cake:

I used choclate milano cookies as tombstones. Slice of the bottom of the cookie, then use a thin icing pen to write on it. There isn’t much space, so choose your words carefully.

• Anita Infusion
• R.U. Next
• Ima Goner
• Manny Bones
• C.U. Later
• Willy Rott
• Bye

Once that’s dried, place the cookie on the cup cake. Use gummy bears  (the living), pumpkins and green sprinkles to decorate.

 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 8:41 am and is filed under Cake, Parties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.