Recipe: Brain Food Cupcake

the appetizer:

Zombie Cupcakes: From the Grave to the Table with 16 Cupcake Corpses by Zilly Rosen, includes recipes like Brain Food; Skeletal Zombies; Knives; Royal Icing; and Italian Meringue Buttercream.

Brain Food

Makes 12
Difficulty Rating 2 of 3
Decorations can be made the same day as baking.

Brains are a delicacy in the cuisine of many cultures, and zombies are no exception. These sweet honey cupcakes with a delicious buttercream filling are the quintessential end to a big zombie meal. A useful survival tip you should know is that destroying a zombie's brain is a sure-fire way to kill it.

Honey Cupcakes

1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup (4 oz/1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups all-purpose, cake, or pastry flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
3 large eggs, beaten
5 tbsp milk

Decorations

15 oz Half & Half (fondant/gumpaste mixture), colored pink
with 1 to 2 drops soft pink paste food coloring
3-1/2 oz Royal Icing, colored peach with 2 drops peach paste food coloring
1/2 quantity Italian Meringue Buttercream
Cornstarch, for dusting
12 oz store-bought fondant, colored green with 1 drop green and a dab of red paste food coloring
4 oz clear piping gel

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with 12 paper cupcake liners. Put the honey, butter, and sugar in a large saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly, until melted and combined. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and let cool.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices into the honey mixture and stir together, Using an electric mixer, gradually beat in the eggs and then stir in the milk until smooth. Spoon the batter into the liners. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning once halfway through baking, until well risen and firm to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

3. To make the brains, divide the pink Half & Half (fondant/gumpaste mixture) into 12 equal-size pieces. Roll one piece into a ball and squeeze it gently from both sides to form an oval. Use the side of the end of a toothpick to score a groove down the center of the oval, creating the 2 hemispheres of the brain. Make sure that the groove curves all the way under the brain. Repeat to make another 11 brains.

4. Fit a pastry bag or parchment paper cone with a fine plain piping tip and fill with the peach Royal Icing. Put each brain on a square of acetate to hold it in place white you are piping, and pipe squiggles and curves all around one side of the brain, Repeat on the other side.

5. To fill the cupcakes, make a large hole in the center of each cupcake with the handle of a wooden spoon.

6. Fill a pastry bag with the Italian Meringue Buttercream and squeeze gently until the hole is filled and a small amount of buttercream comes out of the top.

7. Dust the counter with cornstarch and roll out the green fondant to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Using a 2-1/2 to 3-inch round cutter, cut out 12 circles that will cover the cupcakes. Place a fondant circle on the top of each buttercream center.

8. Use a small amount of water to attach a brain to the center of each fondant circle. Fill a pastry bag or parchment paper cone fitted with a fine plain piping tip with the clear piping gel. Pipe the gel all around the base of each brain to make it look gooey.