First up is A Zombie Ate my Cupcake by Lily Vanilli
After being banished for so long to the land of the pretty and identical, the domestic and the twee, cupcakes are biting back. Here, Lily Vanilli shows how you can take inspiration from anywhere - insects, roadkill, zombies - and recreate it in cake, but always with a delicious result. This book is an introduction to making cakes that look weird, ugly and even grotesque - but that taste divine! There are amazing materials for making edible sculptures and hundreds of things you can do with natural ingredients. Give guests a shock with revoltingly realistic Marzipan Beetles, or add a crunch to your desserts with Morbid Meringue Bones, dipped in raspberry blood sauce. Try out a black cherry Dracula's Bite red velvet cupcake with cream cheese, eat your way through heavenly Fallen Angel Cakes or go for indulgent and truly dark chocolate Devil's Delight Cupcakes. If Ozzy Osbourne made cupcakes, these are the ones he'd want to eat.
Ok, I'm sold, one to add to the pre-order basket!
Next up, Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen, famous for the Obama/Lincoln cupcake portrait.
Cooked up in the darkest of graveyards, it presents a ghoulish army of delicious creations that appear anything but sugar-coated. Recipes range from Zombie Flesh to Zombie Brain, from Gravestones to Night of the Living Cupcake. All the cooking and icing techniques are included, and every recipe features step-by-step instructions for the baking and icing, alongside devilish illustrations and photography. As a finishing touch, zombie quiz panels will test your undead knowledge, making this the book that will raise the spirits at even the most lifeless of gatherings.
Oh dear, another to add to my must have list - at this rate I'll have to get another billy bookshelf asap :)
I have noticed these books are described as "bucking the cupcake trend", or are part of the "cupcake backlash" but they're not really that different as far as I can tell to any cupcake - Martha's cupcakes has a few Halloween cakes, as do most cupcake books I own - these books are just a few extra themed recipes in my opinion. I still can't wait to try them though, I love zombies!*
If you can't wait for the book to come out to make some gruesome cupcakes what about these wonderful, but gross at the same time, blood clot and brain cupcakes from the wonderful Not Quite Nigella - braaaaains!
*As long as they're not trapping me in cinema toilets as happened at the premiere of Land of the Dead at the Odeon, Leicester Square a couple of years ago - I was petrified!
