Cupcakes and Eyeballs for Halloween

Halloween cupcakes

I searched for fun and maybe something a little different in the way of cupcake ideas for Halloween. I was doing cupcakes for a friends dance class, tween age girls so I was not going for the super adult gore. I did not see one thing where I said, that is it perfect, just the usual constant reoccurring themes. So I decided to latch on to one idea and see what I could do to make it fun. My muse? The expressive, spooky eyeball with its limitless creepy possibilities.

You can make it very gory, eyes cut in half sitting on your cupcake with blood oozing out (raspberry sauce, corn syrup with food coloring, red piping gel). Or you can go in the way of monsters, fun, brightly colored, silly one-eyed monsters. I made the eyes and monster parts from fondant and applied them just before the party because fondant can get very sticky, droop and fall apart with the moisture from your refrigerator. Perfect project for doing with your kids, making eyeballs and monster parts and then just before or during the party creating their own silly faces. I know you can do this with candy, but I think they look very different with your own personal hand sculpted parts, whatever they might be, big noses, horns, hair. I also think it ends up being cheaper than buying so many different bags of candy and you are only limited by your imagination not by which candies are on the table at the moment. Wilton fondant works fine colored with food coloring paste. Both the fondant and food coloring can be found where cake-decorating supplies are found. If you prefer a sweeter tasting fondant you can order fondants on line or make your own.

Your kids can make their own.

Making fondant eyeballs

What you will need:

• Corn starch, confectioners sugar or Pam spray (to keep your fondant from sticking)
• Fondant, a small box or and including a small box of already colored fondant (extremely helpful since a dense black is difficult and a little messy to achieve doing it yourself.)
• Rolling pin
• Piping tip (for cutting small circles)
• Toothpicks (for coloring fondant)
• Small paintbrush

Here's what you'll need.

To begin

1. Roll your white fondant into a good eyeball size. You can trace the top of a cupcake liner on to parchment paper as I did to see if your designs are going to fit.
2. Roll out and cut your colored fondant with a piping tip. Gently poke it out with a toothpick then apply a little water to the back of the circle. Stick it to your ball and you have your iris.
3. Roll a small black ball and squash it with your finger to make the pupil, dot the back with water and then apply to your iris. You can do the same technique again to apply a small white highlight to your eye.
4. If you prefer your eye a little more real looking, a little glossy, you can paint clear piping gel with a little water on the top of each eye.
5. Use your creativity and remaining fondant to make accompaniments for your wonderful eyeballs or just use as is.
6. Store in a covered container in a cool part of the house, if you leave the piping gel off until you decide to decorate your cupcakes your eyes and monster parts they will stay good for a month easily. Wonderful for busy Moms or rainy day projects well before Halloween.