Zombie Brain Cupcakes!!!!

This is a combo of a couple recipes I found a few years ago and had waiting for some Halloween in my recipe book.

First I made a strawberry cake.

Then I took some white icing and tinted it with black icing tint. I would probably do a pinkish black next time but this is where I started. It looks kind of blue in this pic but, it really is gray.

Now, got the cupcakes out of the oven. And set to cutting holes about dime size in the center of the tops. You need to cut kind of carefully because you are going to save the top of those little circles. I used a paring knife and dug out a little bit of a cavity in the hole and discarded the crumbs. (Actually I ate them :)

Now I have icing bags and tips but I have been cooking all day and didn't feel like digging them out so I just put my strawberry jam in a sandwich bag and cut the corner to squirt the "blood" jelly in the centers. I wanted these to OOZE so I squeezed long and slow to try and get the center as full as possible.

Once I had them all filled with jam, I put the little tops back over the holes. It doesn't matter which one is which, I didn't keep track and it worked out fine.

Now the FUN part! I took a 16 oz "pounder" glass and put the baggie down in it then wrapped a rubber band around the top to hold it while I filled it up with the gray "brain" icing. This was the most clever thing I have done in a while. lol.

A brain has 2 hemispheres right? So I took my icing and scribbled all around half of the cupcake, then went back and did the other half so that it looked like a brain. BUUUT, I let my icing sit out for too long and it was too runny to hold the form :(  I SWEAR they were stinkin' adorable for a minute!

I will post more tomorrow but I wanted to get this blogged before I quit for the night. I gotta get ready for a date with my mister to sit out and enjoy the meteor shower. I will finish these tomorrow and post better BRAIN pics! :)

I can't wait to share these, they are so much FUN!

OK, I finished icing and delivered these goodies but I have decided that when I make these again, I will use a butter cream icing and maybe a bit of meringue powder to keep the brain squiggles a bit stiffer to hold the shape. Here was the finish of my first go round with these fun cupcakes....

Fried Green Tomatoes anyone?

Well, the neighbor has TONS of these and my boyfriend loves them so, time to try and make 'em right?

I Googled some recipe and did a 4 TBS milk/1 egg wash and it called for 1 cup flour and 1 cup corn meal. I got everything set up and got busy.

I put some vegetable oil in my cast iron skillet and got down to business. First I dunked the slices in the egg and milk mixture, then dredged in the corm meal/flour mixture....then into the pan.

I realized pretty quick that I had accidentally gotten the grease too deep for my tomato slices. The deep grease made the breading all but disappear.

So here are my very first fried green tomatoes. I tasted them and they are ok but I probably won't be craving them. But I did get some ideas on how to make them better (but not healthier).

I emptied my pan and added bacon grease and shortening instead of the vegetable oil. Then after reading a bit online, I saw where some people use just milk instead of egg and milk.

I wanted mine to be crunchy with a bit more breading so, I added more corn meal and a step to my process. I used milk first, then the corn meal/flour mix THEN the egg/milk and one last time in the corn meal/flour before putting them in the pan.

Now, these should be good! I can say that the bacon grease/shortening gave them MUCH more flavor but I would skip the extra corn meal next time, it was a bit too grainy with how much more I added.

I also need to research good things to eat with them or something to dip them in....the extra taste of the dip may be just what I need to really enjoy these Southern treats.