Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

Halloween is almost upon us and the web is overflowing with gruesome (in the visual and culinary sense) items of food to be served at Halloween parties.

I would like to raise the tone a little. Behold the Vampire Slayer cupcake.

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

These cupcakes are gory but elegant, and critically have two other points in their favour. First, they’re edible. Even though they are literally zombie grey inside, there is no dye, no packet cake mix. Just real ingredients for real delicious.

Black sesame cupcakes

Secondly, they’re edgy – you see these are no ordinary dead-on-the-inside grey cupcakes. These are black sesame cupcakes, and with rosy swirl of vanilla butter roux frosting and a dribble of blood red raspberry jam, you wouldn’t feel like a complete arse feeding them to Adriano Zumbo. If he were coming round.

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

The other thing I love about them is how they look “just so” with their beautiful cream coloured rose frosting…

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

– until you put a “bullet wound”…

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

…and then a stake into them.

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

Afternoon tea at Buffy’s house never looked so good.

Vampire Slayer Cupcakes

makes 10-12

Black Sesame Cupcakes

ingredients

100g salted butter
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
50g flour
1/4 cup  black sesame seeds, toasted lightly in a pan, then processed to a fine powder with about 2 tbsp icing sugar
2g baking powder

mixing

Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases. I like to use black cases for aesthetics. Spray the cases with non-stick spray.

Beat the butter and sugar until very light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the flour, black sesame powder and baking powder, beating for about 2 minutes.

10/25/15

10/25/15

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases – no more than 2/3 full – you want these cupcakes to raise up only to the edge of the cases so that your piped rose frosting will be flat. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.

Let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack.

Butter Roux Frosting

ingredients

2/3 cup milk
2 tbsp flour
2/3 cup caster sugar
165g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
touch of gold food colouring
yellow pearl dust
1 package of Cadbury Chocolate Fingers biscuits (you’ll only need 12 but you’ll probably eat the rest during the decoration process)
1/3 cup good quality raspberry jam (sieved to remove all the pips)

mixing

In a small saucepan, mix the flour with a little milk until you have a smooth paste, then add the rest of the milk. Cook mixture over a medium heat until the mixture thickens and boils. Cool to room temperature – this is important, if the flour mixture is too hot the resulting frosting will be soupy! If this happens, chill the mixture and beat again.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer still running, add the flour mixture, a tablespoon at a time, beating until all incorporated. Add the vanilla and beat until well combined.
Refrigerate the mixture for 10-15 minutes before use.
Divide the frosting into two equal portions and tint one portion a very light gold – just a shade darker than the original colour. Load this portion into one side of a large forcing bag. Carefully top with the uncoloured portion.
Pipe rose swirls on top of the cupcake. These are created by starting a spiral at the centre of the cupcake and working outwards, keeping the piping motion in a flat plane and slightly overlapping each spiral on the edge of the inner one.
Vampire Slayer Cupcakes
Dust the frosted cupcakes lightly with yellow pearl dust. Chill until the frosting is set.
To stake your cupcakes, use one chocolate finger (or a similarly sized kitchen implement) and stab all the way down through the cupcake, just off centre. Remove the “stake” and fill each hole with sieved raspberry jam (don’t worry about drips! More authentic!). Then, stake each cupcake with it’s own chocolate finger. The jam will ooze up and out of the hole. Use any remaining jam to drip on the stakes or the surface of the cupcake (but remember: restraint! less is more!).
Vampire Slayer Cupcakes
Enjoy!xxx