It’s been about 3 months since I last made a post and really, since I last had the opportunity to bake.  It’s a sad, sad thing to not have time in one’s life to bake delectable goodies, but with the release of StarCraft2, BlizzCon, and that little thing called “going to work to make teh moneyz” my baking time was sadly limited.  But!  With Halloween here I was provided with the perfect excuse to break out the mixer.  Hot diggity.

Since I only had a limited amount of time to do the baking for the Halloween party I was attending, I decided to spend a little more time on presentation as opposed to the baking itself, in hopes of reducing my stress level.  Because I didn’t try to tackle anything too fancy in terms of decoration, this actually worked out quite well.

So, this time around I went with a Devils Food Cupcake from the lovely Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes cookbook, and to cut a corner (and some time) went to the local grocery store and picked up basic chocolate icing.  I’ll be honest, I felt a pang of guilt…but let’s be honest, store-bought icing tastes pretty damn good.  Somebody get me a spoon…

Anyway.

The interesting thing about these cupcakes themselves was that they had an extra step: rather than just creaming your sugar and butter together, it actually had you melt and combine the butter and sugar in a saucepan first, then beat and add the rest of the ingredients.  I’m honestly not entirely sure how that alters the state of your batter, but I should really take some time and find out.

In the end, the cupcakes came out quite perfect, and quite delicious, a fact validated by multiple party attendees.  The cakes were firm and moist, and the chocolate was very well pronounced without being overwhelming.  Definitely a hit.

But even more awesome than the taste of the cupcakes were their decorations.  Let’s start with some of the tools I had at my disposal:

I found these particular sprinkles while puttering through WalMart’s Halloween-already-being-converted-to-Christmas-crap section.  I bought them primarily for the one second to the left.  Look closely: they’re BONES.  Bone sprinkles, people.  Way too awesome to pass up.

Everybody likes special cupcake liners, right?  Even though they’re basically just being thrown away, they’re always nice to have.  Kind of like colorful underwear.

With these items, and unfortunately one other I didn’t take a picture of, I set about decoratin the crap out of my cupcakes.  I’d come across one idea on the internet that I found most appealing (read “simple”) and I was quite please with the final product.  Behold: the tombstone cupcake!

The final result of the decorations rocked my world.  Typically the picture I have conjured in my head is not what I end up with, but in this case I was absolutely spot-on.  Plus, the bone sprinkles really added a final bit of flair.  If you want a graveyard of your own cupcakes, here’s what you need:

• Black & White Milano cookies
• preferably dark icing (chocolate)
• green sprinkles
• bone sprinkles.  if you’re lucky.

After icing the cupcake, I topped with green sprinkles, chopped a Milano cookie in half and gently jammed it onto one side (jamming I found necessary, since I didn’t top with enough icing to hold the cookie on its own).  Garnish with a few bone sprinkles, and voila!  Your own edible grave plot.