other halloween treats

So I had all these naked cupcakes left over after I decorated the Wild Things (about a dozen). So I made another redhead monster (above) and another pair of Wild Thing claws as well as Werewolf claws (chocolate icing), and 2 monsters looking at each other in the dark (my "read-into-it" cupcake):


I also made some spiders, a bat, a skull and an owl:

all made with Skittles (eyes and bodies of bugs), chocolate melting wafers and chocolate icing from the snipped Ziploc. Oh, and some more tiny little banana candies for the owl's horns & beak! I love Halloween...

where the wild things are... cupcakes!

So I was Max from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak this Halloween. We'd had all these promotional displays at work (movies based on books are a big deal for bookstores), and I saw the movie a few weekends ago. So with all this ado about it, and the cute hat Max wears, how could I not be him for Halloween?


Also, when I was making the Monsters, Inc. cake pops last month, I got a bunch of ideas for Where the Wild Things Are-themed baked goods. So I thought, why not make cupcakes to match my costume?? And share the wealth with my co-workers?

I started out with a batch of devil's food cupcakes (how appropriate!) and whipped vanilla frosting. I got all the decorating candies at Fuzziwigs. The sprinkles were all Wilton. I also bought more melting chocolates (the ones I had were peppermint--I wanted to use white chocolate).

I thought I'd try making a monster first (rather than Max) since I was so excited... Here's the decorating ideas I laid out on wax paper:

Ha! Things are lookin' good. The eyes are yellow Spree candies, the noses are heart-shaped hard candies. The horns, beak and head-feathers are all gummy fruit wedges. The red hair is sour tape and the black hair is licorice (which I ended up not using because it had hardened and was difficult to cut, plus it was hard to chew and didn't taste too good anyway). Oh and the blue nostrils on the bull-looking face are chocolate-covered sunflower seeds!

I decided to make the bird-monster first. He seemed to have the simplest structure: beak, feathers, eye. I put white nonpareil sprinkles on the bottom half to look like the small feather pattern. Then I stuck on the fruit wedges and the Spree eye:

Of course there's a bottom part to the beak and many more feathers that could go in there, but I didn't have any extra fruit wedges to spare. Plus the oven was on and it happened to be a warm Halloween, so the pieces began to slide off. He spent the rest of the decorating time in the fridge!

I then separated some of the vanilla frosting into a bowl and put one drop of red food coloring and one drop of yellow to make a peach skin tone. (I had taken notes on Maurice's artwork from his book during my break at work so I'd know what colors and shapes to use!) It looks kind of like the "anything muppets" Jim Henson had--the kind you add things to to give it a personality:

Look it has a mouth! I didn't mean to do that! I decided to make this one the redhead (being one myself):

Aww... The teeth are white chocolate melts cut into small triangles, and the mouth was that old trick of putting icing in a Ziploc, pushing it to the corner, and snipping a tiny hole (if you don't have a fancy pastry bag!).

I made Max next by icing a cupcake with white, then the skin-tone over it on the middle-to-bottom part. I rimmed the white edges in white sparkling sugar. My original plan was to melt some of the white chocolate and pipe it out in triangle shapes for the ears. Well, I put them in a Ziploc bag in a bowl and microwaved them. The directions said to knead in between microwaving, but I found out too late that the chocolate had melted through the bag! Melted chocolate got all over my hand--ow! So I suggest microwaving in 10-second intervals instead of 30!

That incident kind of killed the dream of shaping melted chocolate into whatever I desired, so I went with the simpler approach of cutting the melting wafers into triangle shapes (duh) and stuck those in. I then used the chocolate icing to draw his face. My first attempt looked like Doug Funnie in a Max costume:

Then I realized he looked too nice and I went for the true Max face:


I am SO proud of this one! I hope it would make Maurice proud, too. The chocolate icing really behaved as it came out of the bag, and the sugar really looks like fuzz!

I used the redhead face template again to make the "main character" monster (I've always seen him as the main character even though that nice bull-like one is on the cover). You know, the one with the striped shirt (body). I used that amazing European chocolate bar, Flake, as the hair and beard. I broke it up into small pieces and spread them around the head. Then I piped some more chocolate icing around it:

The horns are also the melting wafers, just cut in half.

Then I made my personal favorite, the bull-like one. This one gets to be blue! I put a drop of blue food coloring in a Dixie cup full of icing and put that on the cupcake. I added the eyes, fruit wedges (horns and ears), sunflower seeds (nostrils), icing mouth and melting wafer teeth (cut into square shapes). I almost forgot about the blue sprinkles I had picked up the day before!! I think that was the finishing touch that made this one come out so nicely. The one in the book has a mound of fluff or fur on top of his head which the glitter mimicked pretty well:

The plate even looks like the plants from Where the Wild Things Are!

So here they all are together:

And on a plate:

Yay!!

With the leftover cupcakes and what remained of the decorations (not much), I made some blue claw cupcakes and some title cupcakes:


The claws are--you guessed it!--white chocolate melting wafers cut in half! I'm so glad I bought those.

I made these to bring into work with my costume on, so here they all are in the amazing Cupcake Courier:


A few close-ups!!

This one has some significance if you've seen the movie:


And of course here's me in my costume holding my darlings:


Here I am with my costumed co-workers/friends:
Colonel Mustard, his girlfriend The Maid (both from Clue), Billy Mays in front of them, Paper Bag Princess (from the Robert Munsch book of the same name), a Pirate, Peter Pan, and me, Max!

Here is one of the cupcakes with his stuffed animal counterpart:

Here's one last picture taken at work with the artwork we usually have above the hardcover picture books:

They were then left in the break room where the REAL wild things are ;) Happy Halloween!

I Cupcake NY

I plan on having some homemade stuff up next week since it's going to be Halloween and all, but since I haven't posted anything in about a month (last days of a grad class, then I got a week-long cold), I figured I'd at least show you some adorable cupcakes from NYC. I'm sure you've heard of Magnolia Bakery...

There are a few locations in the city, but the one I went to today was the one at Rockefeller Center. It was too busy for me to loll around and take pictures, plus I wouldn't've had any good shots since there were people everywhere. I did take pictures of the goods, however. I got 2 red velvet cupcakes, which I think last year they were calling Rockette cupcakes because of the red outfits they wear during the Christmas Spectacular, but I didn't see that anywhere today or on their website...

It looks like a snowball!

The side of the box cut it a little after I took one out, but it makes for a better picture!



Mmmmmm.... The icing is vanilla--I'm used to cream cheese on my red velvets! It was good anyway, of course. I also brought 2 home for my parents:

These look even better! I especially love the little sugar daisy. It looks like a barrette.

Last time I went to Magnolia (last winter) I noticed their T-shirts but I didn't buy one. I bought one today:
It came wrapped in a brown bow (I also took a business card).

Awww, I do cupcake New York.
Of course the logo is on the back. Well. It's good to know there's also a whole world of cupcake couture out there. Hooray Magnolia!

Monsters, Inc. cake pops!

I didn't have enough of these made the other day to put pictures up, but here they are as promised! Ever since my co-worker told me about Bakerella's adorable cake pops, I have been dying to make some myself. I was also imagining how I would decorate them to fit with my Pixar theme (see my previous post for the Pixar cupcakes and costumes :))

The first idea I had was to put mini chocolate chips on a green cake pop and call it Mike Wazowsky. So I bought green, blue, white and chocolate melting wafers at A.C. Moore. The green & blue ones were the perfect shades--it's like they knew I was coming! I made the cake the night before, and the next day I had to crumble up the cake (with my fingers because I don't have a food processor as you might remember from the Oreo crushing incident) to add the icing and form it into balls:

I melted some chocolate wafers in a mug and dipped the lollipop sticks in them to act as a glue when I stuck them into the cake (as Bakerella suggests). I think it made them look pretty professional! Then I kept them in the freezer while I melted some green wafers. I took a few out and positioned them in the styrofoam ring I bought (again, Bakerella's clever recommendation) so they would dry standing up! I spooned the green coating on and added the mini chocolate chips:

You don't know how PLEASED I was when I did this. It came out EXACTLY how I pictured it. That practically never happens! So I went on to make the Sullys:

Those aren't Runts, they're "tangy bananas" from Fuzziwig's (I was hoping banana Runts came in their own separate spot so I could shovel those into my candy bag, but I was getting tired of trying to manipulate the scoop to JUST get the bananas). They're actually smaller than banana Runts and worked a lot better for these pops! (I think these would also work nicely for a "Where the Wild Things Are" theme, which, you know, I just might do next)

I served Mike and Sully like that for my friends, but I had SO MANY left over that I decided to make Boo tonight. I'd had the idea before, but I had NO time to get them together before my friends arrived. So I did it tonight! My idea was: dip some candy corn pieces in chocolate:


then half-dip the pops in white melting wafers (which I thought would be vanilla, but I bought peppermint without realizing it, and then I thought, I should have bought pink or some peachy color since it's supposed to be Boo's face):

then dip the top halves in chocolate and quickly push the candy corn pieces into the sides:
Aaaaah cute! I did the faces with a toothpick dipped in the melted chocolate. Since I put a face on Boo, I decided to try that with Mike and Sully, too:

Well, Sully looks weird. I think I like him better as "conceptual Sully" like in the pictures up top. Anyway I put a bow on Boo since I couldn't think of any other way to make her not look like a ghost with pigtails, or Mickey Mouse:

So here they are together:
and since I had him out, here is Mike with Mike:
and of course here I am with them:
(I always forget to fix my glasses before getting my picture taken! I really have to fix that tilt..)
Anyway. Hope you like these, and you can get the recipe, how-to and tips at www.bakerella.com, along with about a zillion other adorable recipes and photos!! (and here's some more of mine because I took so many pictures I just want to share them all)

Boo and her monster:
"Conceptual" version:
The gang's all here:


A Mickey "Vinylmation" figure I got a few weeks ago at the 5th Ave Disney Store that reminded me of what I just did: