Post-Halloween Spookiness

I have made friends with a new site called Classic Horror Campaign and they're great fun. Just got a film review up, Carnival of Souls, and they've managed to source a load of beautiful posters and different covers. My favourite is probably the pen-and-ink style black and white one, which doesn't give away anything about the plot with a silly tagline (plus why colour the cover of a black and white film....).

ALSO in conjunction with the Classic Horror Campaign was Frighten Brighton, an event for which I made these beauties:

SKULL AND CROSS-BUNS

60g butter
140g caster sugar
1 egg (recipe says large but I tend to use medium as I feel sorry for the hens)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
115g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp bicarb of soda / baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 tbsp milk
4 tbsp strong espresso

• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs and vanilla extract. If it separates a bit dont worry, but you can always warm it very gently until fully combined.
• Combine the flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda, and then sift them slowly into the buttery goo, alternating this with your milk.
• Then finally stir in your espresso. If you can't make 'proper' espresso then the equivalent in instant is fine: strength-wise just go by how much you love coffee!
• Bake at 180'C/gas 4 for about 15 minutes, until they are firm to the touch.
  

This was adapted from the lovely Lily Vanilli's chocolate cupcake recipe: I LOVE the addition of coffee, it gives it such a rich, dark edge.
As the cocoa means they can still be a little dry, even with the addition of milk, I mixed dark brown sugar and some more cocoa with boiling water to get a classic fudge sauce, and drizzled it on top. This can be done after cooking, as I wanted it over the top of my skulls, or about 3/4 of the way through to get an even goopier cupcake.

I was hoping to use marzipan for the skulls, and bake them til they were nice and crispy, but the world had sold out of the stuff as everyone had decided to make their Christmas fruitcakes! So I sculpted them with white icing and glued them on top with buttercream before adding my chocolate drizzle.

Success!

Next plan: get a better camera, my baking is good but the photos are horrendous.