Bakin' Weekend

Sunday we had two family dinners to go to for both of our families, and I was assigned to bring desserts for both.  So Saturday my sister and I got together to do some serious baking.

First we made the cupcakes for Jordan's family dinner, and while they were baking made the cookies for my family.  I get really bored of making cupcakes after about ten or so, so I only made eight cupcakes and used the rest of the batter to make a cake.

I had been wanting to make these cupcakes that looked like brains, and then when you bit into them there would be a raspberry filling that would look like a blood clot.  Gruesome and fantastic.  However, it was not as straight forward as I thought it would be.

Apparently the batter wasn't thick enough 'cause the raspberry filling just sunk to the bottom.  Oh well, I could live with that.  Then I thought I could just get grayish frosting and slap squigglies on there and it would look like brains.  For some strange reason I still don't understand a little bit of black food coloring doesn't make gray, but purple.  Figure that one out.  I also learned that if you slap squiggly frosting on a cupcake it looks like you just slapped squiggly frosting on a cupcake, and not brains.

I was getting so frustrated that they weren't turning out how I wanted that I didn't even frost the cake, and called the cupcakes good enough.  The next morning I saw them with fresh eyes and decided that they didn't turn out so bad after all.  Mostly.

Granted it's not the best of pictures but I think you get the gist, and you can definitely see the learning curve.

While I was fuming over my cupcakes my sister was making the cookies.  She had found a way cool recipe that had cookies in the shape of fingers and with almond slivers for fingernails.  They turned out absolutelybrilliant, mostly 'cause she was doing them.  I tried to make one, and fresh off my cupcake frustration had zero patience to make any more than that.

Here are the finished witches' fingers:

She arranged them in coco pebbles to look like dirt, with gummy worms.  I thought they looked so amazing!