A Zombie Ate My Cupcake

A Zombie Ate My Cupcake
by Lily Vanilli [641.865 Van]

This one visually caught my eye on the library's "new book" display shortly after Halloween. The cover illustration, of two candy skull-style cupcakes, is very reminiscent of the traditional confections that are part of the Mexican "Dia de los Muertos" celebration. Opening up the book, though, I was confronted by a wide variety of creepy, gross and somewhat repellent cupcake decorations -- perfect for a spooky party or as an antidote to the standard pink and glittery cupcakes that you'll see in grocery-store baked goods sections. The primary focus of this cute little book is on the decorating -- in fact, there are only seven basic cupcake and frosting recipes in an appendix at the back of the book. Instead, there are 25 nicely-illustrated guides to how to create morbid-looking cupcakes with frostings, sauces and the less-common mediums of fondant and marzipan. In fact, marzipan, the shapeable, clay-like candy, features prominently in many of the recipes -- as worms crawling out of cupcake eyeballs, as zombie fingers crawling out of a chocolate cupcake grave, as human ears on mutant ear cupcakes, as fake insects, and as orbiting planets above Raspberry Spacecakes. My two favorites in the book, at least in terms of how realistic they look in the accompanying photographs, have to be "Shattered Glass", in which shards of candy glass are stabbing into white cupcakes that they bleed cherry sauce, and "Bleeding Hearts", in which red velvet cupcakes and white fondant, molded into the shape of aortas and they coated in thick cherry sauce, look like a frighteningly realistic heart. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library [Subscribe to Scott's monthly booklist newsletter It's All Geek to Me! - on the Books, Movies & More newsletter sign-up page]

[ LilyVanilli.com ]
 
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