Halloween Cupcake #1: Feed Me Frankenstein

Halloween's coming up, so I thought I'd try out some festive treats. Tonight I made some chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate whipped cream filling/frosting that are adorned by none other than Mr. Frankenstein ('s monster).

For the actual cupcake, I went with this, minus the chocolate chips. I had some troubles along the way. Not with the recipe, but more so with my ability to overfill liners (half to me is always 2/3 or even 3/4 occasionally). Also, they never quite seemed fully cooked to me. They came out a little too moist and sticky for me not to be suspect. And one more: my baking powder is waaay expired, and I do declare, it's fouling up my tiny cakes.

The whipped cream I also swiped from Cupcake Project (I always head there when an idea comes to me) , except I quadrupled it for my needs. I'll reprint it here for the sake of being efficient.

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Chocolate Whipped Cream:

2 c heavy whipping cream
1 c sugar (if properly quadrupling, you'd get 1/2 cup, but I wanted it a bit sweeter)
1/2 c cocoa powder

Beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Beat in sugar. Beat in cocoa.

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Oh yeah. I also added some purple coloring gel to this hoping to get a pleasant shade of violet, and ended up with a gruesome shade of bleh. So there's that. 

Now on to my favorite part:

My favorite? The one on the far right in the middle row. He came out so much more terrified than terrifying. An honorable mention goes out to the impostor in the corner.

I didn't come up with these guys. I remember seeing them a few years ago in a magazine and have wanted to make them ever since. These are Fudge Grahams partially dipped in slightly melted butter cream frosting that has been dyed green (which came out so excellently green, not bleh). The eye brows and mouths are done in Wilton's black sparkle gel. The eyes are those little cinnamon candies. You know the ones. They were originally going to be M&M minis, but I had these on hand and since these are a trial run cupcake, I didn't think it'd matter. I actually do like the random burst of cinnamon that you get from these heads though. Go figure.

I was actually a little afraid to try these, thinking they'd be far too sweet for someone who may or may not have eaten a bunch of extra chocolate whipped cream and saw a tummy ache on the horizon. Still, I tried one and was rather surprised that I wasn't instantly heaving. They were just sweet enough.

As a final note, I'd like to mention that I use flash when I take closeups even though it's a no-no. I've tried everything I can to not use flash, but it is dim as the dickens around here, and I don't have the ISO speed or the steady hands to pull off a decently lit photograph. So that's that.