Halloween Bloody Brain Cupcakes

This is a really fun way to decorate your cupcakes for halloween.

Ingredients:

• 1 recipe Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes

• 1 recipe American Buttercream

• Red food coloring to taste

• Black food coloring to taste

• 1 cup seedless raspberry jelly

Special Equipment:

• Medium-small round piping tip

• Medium-large piping tip

• Small round piping tip

• Disposable piping bags

Directions:

1. Use the back of a clean piping tip to core the center of the top of each cupcake, leaving a small indent for the jam. Reserve the cake taken off the top.

2. In a small saucepan or in the microwave, briefly melt the jam and mix in a teaspoon or so of water to thin it out.

3. Pipe or spoon about a tsp of jam per cupcake into the indents of the cupcakes and cover the jam with the reserved cake pieces.

4. Color your buttercream with black and red to reach a gross, brainy, off-white color.

5. On top of the covered jam, pipe a small mound of buttercream in the center of each cupcake. Use your medium large tip for this.

6. To make the brain design, use your medium-small tip. Pipe a D shape starting with a vertical line down just right of the middle (going over the mound you piped in step five.) Holding your tip slightly higher than normal helps. Turn the cake 180° and repeat with the vertical line of the second D splitting the center with that of the first. Fill in the hole created by each D with squiggles of icing.

7. Using a small round tip, pipe on remaining jelly to resemble blood to taste.