For my boyfriend’s birthday I decided to surprise him by making cupcakes. I made him cupcakes inspired by Shaun of the Dead and Toy Story.
I can’t take credit for the Little Green Men cupcakes – I got the idea straight from Disney.com. However, I could choose what kind of cupcakes I wanted to make. I chose Dark Chocolate Mocha.
For Shaun of the Dead cupcakes, I thought of the decorations myself, and made Rum and Coke cupcakes.
Here we go!
1. LGM Dark Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes
I did not know baking was so expensive! I had to buy all of the ingredients, as well as the candy toppings. Here is the recipe (from Cate’s World Kitchen):
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4 tablespoons butter, melted [unsalted butter!]
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 egg white
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons strong coffee (or three tablespoons warm water mixed with 1 tablespoon instant coffee)
Like usual, I made some changes. First, I multiplied the recipe by 1.5. Since I’m on a (slight) health kick, I used half wheat flour and half white flour. I also used raw sugar instead of white sugar, 2% instead of buttermilk and finally, Starbucks Columbia VIA instead of regular coffee.
I made homemade cream cheese icing to put on top, as I needed the icing to be green, not mocha brown. I coloured the icing with “Nuclear Green” food colouring I found at Ming Wo (heaven for bakers):
Then I had to prepare the toppings. You use mints for the eyes, green apple sour straws for the antenna, and sour green apple belts for the ears.
I used tiny leaf fondant cutters for the ears. Unfortunately, the ears were different shades of green than the antennas. Oh, well. I cut out the antennas, making them 2″ in length.
When the cupcakes were done, I decorated them! I used black gel icing for the detail.
2. Shaun’s Rum and Coke Cupcakes
These are something they would sell at the Winchester! I used this recipe for the Rum and Coke cupcakes, with the same changes as above to the flour and milk:
3 cups cake flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
1 cup Classic Coca-Cola (not diet)
1/4 cup dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup whole milk
I just used store-bought vanilla icing.
For Shaun’s shirt and tie cupcakes, I bought sour cherry belts and cut them into ties 4cm long, 1.5 cm wide. I also cut out squares for the nametag.
For the cricket bat cupcakes, I cut Twix bars in half and used icing to add a handle and blood.
The cupcakes themselves didn’t turn out that well—I couldn’t taste the rum at all and there was only a bit of coke flavour. Perhaps I’ll add more of each next time.
Ta da!
Ha Brilliant! Very cool!