Tasty Zombies

It's time to turn the tables on the zombies.  No longer shall we live in fear of being eaten by a zombie, yes, let's rise up and beat them at their own game.  It's time we started to eat them.  And, when they're primarily made of sugar, it's easy to do.  Add some life (or in this case death) to your cupcakes by making some edible zombie parts.

You need:

Fondant
Green Paste Coloring
Toothpicks
Knife
Vegetable Shortening (maybe)
Baby Bottle Cap



Break off some fondant and place two or three drops of green coloring in the middle.  Work the coloring throughout the fondant until it's a nice shade of green.  If it gets too sticky, you can rub a small amount of vegetable shortening over it.

Once you've worked the color through the fondant, flatten it out with a rolling pin and cut out twelve small circles.  I had luck using a baby bottle cap.  It's also a great time to let your kids have some fun cutting out shapes and rolling them into balls.

Now the fun begins.  Press your thumb into one end of a ball to flatten it out.  Don't press too hard, you want to leave enough material to work with.  This will be the template for your hand.  Lengthen out the other end into an arm.

Use your knife to cut a section of the fondant for the thumb.  Pull the thumb section away from the rest of the "hand" and make three more cuts for the other fingers.

Separate the fingers and stretch them out to a tip.  From there you can start shaping them into fingers and bend them up into a claw-like shape.  Use a toothpick to create knuckle joints and lines on the palms.

You may find that it helps to let the hands sit out over night to toughen up a little.  When you're done, set a toothpick through the arm and then mount them to your cupcakes.

Those cupcakes are delicious by the way.  Learn how to make your own Graveyard Halloween Cupcakes here.

Freshly Dug Gravecakes

Easy Halloween recipes are all over the internet, but I'm not interested in easy.  I'm interested in disgusting, gross, and eye-popping treats.  Last week I made some Bloody Eye Halloween Cupcakes that were fairly easy to make (except for the eyebrows), but they didn't taste all that great.  This weekend, I made some graveyard cupcakes (thanks to Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen) that are probably the tastiest thing I ever pulled out of the oven (next to bacon).

<------------That's supposed to be a zombie hand coming up through a grave.  After my sixth or seventh attempt at fashioning edible zombie parts, I finally settled on this hand and decided 'to hell' with the remaining eleven zombies.  So, in the earth they remain.

While the zombie hands weren't all that easy to make, the cupcakes were simple enough.  And, like I said, the cupcakes alone make this recipe a keeper.  Here's what you need.

Oreo Cookies (10-15)
1 big-ass bag of semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
5 tbsp. butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. sour cream
2 tbsp. water
2 cups heavy cream

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 12-hole muffin pan with cupcake liners.  Crush Oreos into 1/4 inch pieces.  Place 1 tbsp. into each liner.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt in one bowl.  Place butter and sugar in a large bowl and mix together (with an electric mixer) until it's fluffy.  Melt 1 3/4 oz. of the chocolate chips and blend it in with the butter and sugar.  Mix in the eggs, vanilla extract, and sour cream.  Add about half of the flour mixture to your wet ingredients and blend.  Add the water and remaining flour mixture.

Using half of the batter mix, divide it up among the twelve cupcakes, covering the Oreo cookies.  Cover the batter with 1 tsp. of chocolate chips.

Now cover the chips with the remaining batter and any cookie pieces you may have left over.  I opted to add the batter and just eat the remaining cookie pieces.  Your call.

Stick it in the oven for about 25 minutes and turn once halfway through.

While that's cooking, it's time to make some mud for your grave.  Remember that big-ass bag of chocolate chips?  If you haven't eaten them all yet, stick 2 3/4 cups of chips into a heatproof bowl.  Bring 2 cups of heavy cream to a boil in a saucepan.  As soon as it starts boiling, pour it into the bowl with the chocolate chips.  Whisk it together until it's smooth.  Add the butter and whisk again.  At this point you have two options.  The recipe I followed said to stick the mixture in the fridge and let it cool.  I opted to just leave it out and spread it on right away.

Once your cupcakes cool off, spread on the mud.  After realizing how time consuming it is to spread the mud on, just dip the cupcake upside down into your bowl of mud.  Crush up some more Oreo cookies into a bowl.  Dip the freshly mudded cupcakes into the cookies to give the appearance of dirt.

If you took the time to make a dozen fondant hands, congratulations, you're a better parent than I.  Shove a toothpick in the hand and mount the cupcakes.  Learn how to make some zombie hands.

Spread a small amount of piping gel on various areas of the hand and sprinkle with cookie crumbs for effect.

Mud comes in many different colors, so do cookies. Try crumbling chocolate chip cookies for dirt too.

Eye-Popping Cupcakes

We've already carved pumpkins, picked out our costumes, and set up our outdoor decorations.  But, the Halloween season isn't complete until you bake something disgusting.  Enter the Eye-Popping halloween cupcakes.

 Like so many things in life, baking disgusting cupcakes are fun for kids (who don't really have to do any of the work), but a hassle for parents.  Regardless, this is a tasty treat that your kids are going to either enjoy or turn their nose up at.  Let's do this.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs                           1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp almond extract               1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pink paste food coloring         1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder            1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt                              1/4 cup finely ground almonds
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar       3/4 cup butter




The cupcakes are the easy part and pretty much the only part where your children (depending on their age) can actually help you.

1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Line a muffin pan (twelve-hole) with cupcake liners.  Mix the eggs, vanilla and almond extracts, and only 3 tablespoons worth of the 1/2 cup of sour cream.  If your daughter is sitting at the kitchen peninsula yelling "I do it", now would be a good time to let her help.  Let your kids pour ingredients into the mixing bowls; it's all my 3-year old will be able to do anyway.   If you have pink food coloring, add a small amount.  I just used one drop of red food coloring and it turned out alright.  You just want to get a nice fleshy color.

2.  Mix the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt into a separate bowl.  Add the almonds and sugar.  Finally, mix in the rest of the sour cream using an electric mixer.  Gradually beat in the egg mixture until combined.  Fill your cupcake liners and bake for ten minutes, turn the pan, and bake for ten more.

3.  Once the cupcakes are cool, press an "Eye Socket" shape into the tops.

Now school begins.

First off, let me say that before this little Halloween craft began, I had no idea what fondant was.  Now I know it's delicious.

Here's what you need to decorate your Halloween cupcakes.

cornstarch
approximately 1 1/2 lbs. of  plain white fondant
3 oz. clear piping gel
red edible marker pen
paste food coloring (brown, black, sky blue)
vegetable shortening

1.  Spread out some cornstarch on your work surface and roll out the fondant to about 1/8 of an inch in thickness.  You want to cut out circles to cover the cupcakes.  I used a glass from the cupboard.  They were a little bigger than necessary, but as mentioned before, fondant is delicious so more is better.  Once they're cut out, place them on your cupcakes.

2.  Eyes:  To make the eyes, pull off an eye-ball chunk size of fondant and roll it around into a ball.  Squeeze one end of it out into a "stem".  Make 12 of 'em.

 They'll look less erotic later. I promise.

3.  Eyebrows:  Make some eyebrows by rolling fondant into little sausage shapes.  First, you'll need to dye your fondant brown.  You only need a small amount of the paste food coloring to do this.  Work the brown paste through the fondant until it's a nice brown.  When it gets sticky, use some vegetable shortening.  Roll your brown fondant into a sausage shape.  Flatten out one end of it and curve the other end around like an eyebrow.  Use a knife to cut "hair" into the eyebrow.  This is the one part of the project that I feel turned out like crap.

LITERALLY! They turned out like little pieces of crap.

4.  Irises:  Take a small amount of fondant and one or two drops of sky blue paste coloring and work it together.  Roll out the blue fondant and punch out 12 tiny circles for the irises.  If you have a small piping tip, great, if not, you'll have to improvise.  I used the end of our pumpkin carving tools to cut them out.  Dip the end of your finger into water and attach the irises to the eyeballs.

It carves, it cuts holes, it makes Julienne fries.

5. Pupils:  You need a very small amount of fondant for the pupils.  Use your black paste coloring (a miniscule amount) to turn the fondant black.  Pinch of a tiny piece and rub it into a ball between your fingers.  Attach to the iris using a small amount of water.  Once the eyes are complete, use an edible marker (red) to draw arteries on the eyeballs.

6.  Bloody Goo:  I imagine that if an eye came out of its socket, there would be a considerable amount of bloody goo.  So let's make some.  Dish out your piping gel and turn it blood red with some food coloring.  Remember those holes you pushed into the tops of the cupcakes?  Pour some of your blood into those sink holes.  Sink the stem of your eyes into the hole and attach it with water.  Place your
eyebrows above the eye socket.

Enjoy grossing people out with your Halloween Cupcakes.  If the eyes don't freak them out, the
cat poop eyebrows will.  For more disgusting treats, check out Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen.

Microwave Cookies

I love cookies, but I hate making them.   I'm a busy guy.   I don't have 30 minutes to waste on pre-heating an oven and then baking cookies.  I want chocolate now.  What's a guy to do?  Microwave them Cookies

.

In as little as 3.5 minutes you can be throwing back mouthfuls of chocolatey-goodness and sucking down some skim milk.  Here's how:

1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 c. dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. Bisquick
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Stir the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together.  Mix in the Bisquick.  Drop the chocolate in and you're ready to go.  Place some cookie shaped balls of dough on your plate.  Microwave it for 3.5 minutes at medium power.  Done!

That's 26.5 minutes of free-time you've gained over the traditional baking-your-cookies-in-the-oven method.  Spend it wisely.  I took a nap and then wrote this.

But do they taste awful? Yes...Awful delicious!