Foodie Header

Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Vampire and Slayer Cupcakes (Easy Halloween Cupcake #1)

Like my previous Halloween post on Quick Creepy Treats, this post and the few following it are not actual recipes, but ideas and directions for assembly of some quick Halloween-themed treats, in this case, cupcakes. But not just any cupcakes…vampire cupcakes…and slayer cupcakes!

In other words, 

Welcome to the Hellmouth. Or my kitchen. Either way. Now, vampirism is a cumbersome and complex topic, full of history and pop culture references. For just a bite (get it?) of vampire lore concerning that most famous of all vamps, keep reading, or scroll down to the pics to get back to the Buffy baking!

Vampires, those eternal creatures of the night that feed on the life forces of the living, make an appearance in the legends of nearly all of the world’s cultures, from the Lilitu of ancient Persia and the Lamia of ancient Greece, all the way to the Loogaroo of the Caribbean (as well as several varieties not brought to you by the letter “L”). Stories of the undead who drain the life essence of humans exist on every continent, but perhaps nowhere so famously as in Eastern Europe, the home of the infamous Dracula.

Even before Bram Stoker came along, vampire mythology had a long tradition in eastern Europe, most notably amongst the Slavs and Romanians. Although he was not the original source of the vampire legends, one man’s legacy provided the basis for our modern classical concept of vampires as described by Stoker: Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Tepes, was born in Transylvania, but he did not technically reign there. Vlad III was actually the Voivode of Wallachia, a principality that is part of modern day Romania. Voivode is a uniquely Slavic title that combines the authority of a prince with that of a supreme military commander. Vlad inherited the voivodeship from his father, Vlad Dracul, so named because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon (from the Greek: Δράκων (Dracon)). Because of this, Vlad III became known as Vlad Dracula, literally “son of the dragon”.  But there was something prophetic about this moniker, because the Romanian word drac has a meaning of its own: devil.

Now, Vlad did not start out as a torturer and mass murderer. He started out as an eleven year old boy who had been sent as a political hostage to the Ottomans as a show of loyalty between Vlad’s father and his tenuous Turkish allies against the Hungarians. Such things were common during this time period, but Vlad was badly mistreated by the Ottomans over a period spanning 5 years, which sowed the seeds of his implacable hatred of the Ottomans later in life. At the age of 16, Vlad’s father was murdered by the boyars (aristocrats) of Wallachia, who had allied with the Hungarians, while his older brother Mircea was blinded and buried alive. So there was quite a bit of revenge mixed into Vlad’s bloody story. Everything came to a head on Easter Sunday, 1457, when Vlad finally had his revenge: the older boyars and families were all impaled, while the younger boyars were enslaved to rebuild Poienari Castle. None survived. Over the rest of his reign, Vlad systematically wiped out the entire aristocracy of his country, who were not only associated with the murder of his family, but who also had a long history of undermining the Voivode’s authority.

Vlad III’s reign itself was not so very remarkable in the context of a 15th century ruler who was trying to consolidate power – he killed everyone opposed to him or who he thought might pose a challenge to his authority in the future, including both his own people and those of rival nations.  But what made Vlad so interesting, and what undoubtedly caught Stoker’s attention, was his unusual method of killing and torturing. As he did with the boyars, Vlad preferred impalement as his execution method of choice, with a side of torture thrown in: the stake was gradually driven into the bodies – so gradually that it could take days for the victim to die. And Vlad didn’t stop with the boyars, he impaled tens of thousands of people, many of whom were prisoners of war.  In 1462, Mehmed II, ruler of Constantinople, was said to have retreated back to Ottoman lands with his army in fear and disgust when he encountered more than 20,000 Turkish prisoners of war staked to the ground outside of Vlad’s capital city.  And while tales of his cruelty and massacres are still infamous in adjacent areas and found their way into many local vampire legends, in Romania he is still lauded as a national hero for his war against the Ottomans.

However, the real-life Dracula didn’t lend much to Stoker beyond his name, location, and method of execution: a stake through the heart. Which brings us to:

The contributions to pop culture of Joss Whedon notwithstanding, the most prevalent vampire hunter lore again comes from Eastern Europe, especially from Romani oral traditions (not to be confused with Romanians, Romani are Gypsies). According to Romani legends, the offspring of a vampire and a mortal, dhampir, had the ability to see and identify vampires, and could thus protect their villages from them. They also had the extra advantages of superhuman speed, strength and agility, making them well equipped to throw down with vampires.  There are rough counterparts to this concept in several Balkan and Slavic areas, some half vampires and some not, but all endowed with extra abilities to combat the supernatural. However, unlike modern fictional portrayals of vampire hunters, the hunters of legend were usually identifiable by the fact that they were grossly malformed.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled baking!

 These cupcakes are so simple, I really think I gave them their own post in order to have an opportunity to write about vampires and somehow incorporate Buffy into my baking. But in any event, as with the previous Halloween treats I posted, this is the simplest version of a theme. Depending on the amount of time you want to spend, you can get proportionally more elaborate than I did here.

This is what I used.
First, you bake some cupcakes. Easy, right? I used a Sprinkles vanilla cylinder because I had it on hand, but you can make any kind you want. But, give some forethought to how you want to fill these cupcakes and the method you are going to use to fill them. If, say, you are going to cut a plug out of the cupcakes and fill them with some red colored cream filling, or some cherry pie filling mixed with almond extract, then the cupcakes can be whatever flavor/color you want. If you are going to be like me, and poke some red stuff (ie warmed jam or Jell-o to make a poke cake) all over the cake, chose a light batter so that people can see the red soaked into the cake.

Next, you fill the cupcakes. Now, you don’t have to fill them, but it really looks nice to have some red stuff in there for when people bite down. Like I said, you can make your own cream (recipe at end) and dye it appropriate colors, or you can use some chopped cherry pie filling from a can mixed with some almond extract. If you do either of these methods, cut a plug out from your cupcakes and fill them.
Heat until the jam is thin.

Now, rather than this, I took an easier route with these. I decided to try poke cupcakes, which usually means that you poke the cupcakes with a toothpick and pour something thinned out over them to be soaked down into the cake. The most common thing to pour over is Jell-o, either strawberry or cherry. But I went one step easier, and used raspberry jam heated (carefully!) in the microwave. If you do this, be sure to buy jam and not preserves, because preserves don't melt in the same way.  It was fast, easy, and made the vanilla cupcake taste rather like a thumbprint cookie. But, instead of just poking, I actually used a syringe to inject the cupcakes with the jam, since it was still a little thicker than Jell-o (the same syringe as in my Mini Tortuga Rum Cakes, if you want to see detailed syringe pictures).  
I'm not trying to be spooky with this pic, I didn't realize the flash was on...
Don't mind my messy table...
The syringe sort of looks like an overgrown reverse mosquito, forcing blood in rather than sucking it out. And I learned something very important. When you do this, with jam at least, withdraw the syringe tip slowly, otherwise the jam will come gushing back out of the hole like this:

This isn't tragic, they are Halloween cupcakes after all. If this happens, just be a little more careful when you frost, because you want the icing surface to be as white as possible. You'll notice that I poked anywhere from 1-3 holes per cupcake. I think 2 holes worked out ideal. If you are going to use Jell-o, you can still use the syringe, but it will have an easier time soaking into the cake than the jam, so you can just poke with a toothpick and let the liquid soak in.

Now you can frost. You don’t need to do much with the frosting itself, so you can use white icing from a tub if you wish, or a basic buttercream, or you can slap on a Swiss meringue buttercream or 7 minute frosting…really whatever you feel like, as long as it is white. When you choose your frosting, go ahead and frost your cupcakes smoothly, not in a terribly thick layer.

Now, you poke holes in the frosting and add “blood” and this is really where it helps to have a red filling that can double as blood on the top of the cupcake. Make 2 holes in the frosting that look like a vampire’s bite mark, and fill them with your “blood”, dribbling blood away from the holes. Voila! Easy vampire cupcakes. I rushed them a little bit, so they aren't as pretty as I would have liked, but you get the general idea...

My apartment was unseasonably hot, and my icing started to melt!

And then when you cut it open, there is a nice amount of bloodiness in the cake:

In this particular cupcake, I managed to line up the bite puncture wounds perfectly with the jam in the cake. It looks cool, but it wasn't intentional, and isn't necessary. The only way anyone would notice is if they split the cupcake down the middle anyway.

To complete the theme, because I was determined to tie it in somehow, I made some “slayer” cupcakes, settling on a "stake through the heart" theme: assemble them the same way as the vampire cupcakes up through the frosting part. After the layer of white frosting is down, take some of your frosting and dye it red. Then, pipe a heart onto the top of the cupcake, and put a stake through it (in this case, a pretzel stick). 

If you think the cupcake is a little ambiguous, you can always write “Stake the <3” on them instead of just the heart, like I did. And if you want, you can ground up some Oreo “ashes” for decoration around the edges, because you, my friend, have just dusted a vamp.

Is this sophisticated decorating? Not at all. Marshmallow fondant would probably make a nicer surface than the icing, but I just didn't have the patience. Ditto for the heart. A chocolate-dipped pretzel rod would have made a better Mr. Pointy. I could have dribbled the jam a bit more artistically. But you don't have to go nuts for a simple theme. After all, everything doesn't need to look like the Cake Boss did it. I don't know about you, but my baking time is always competing with other things. When I made these, I was simultaneously baking and decorating cupcakes, getting dinner together, assembling a Halloween costume, and reading articles for work. But these cupcakes work with my schedule. They are easy, cute, and get the point across. 

This recipe is actually a Twinkie filling copycat recipe that has been floating around the internet for years in many different places.

  • 1-7oz jar marshmallow cream2 tsp hot water
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 C shortening
  • 1/3 C powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla

  1. Dissolve the salt in the hot water and allow it to cool down to room temp
  2. Whip all ingredients except the salt water until fluffy
  3. Slowly add the salt water and whip well until fully combined and fluffy
  4. Add dye gel if desired

No comments: