stabby broken glass cupcakes for halloween

For Halloween this year, my work held a baking contest! I can’t tell you how excited I was about this. I started browsing around on Pinterest for ideas the day I found out the contest was happening to help me find a decorating idea. I stumbled upon some images of broken glass cupcakes… and I knew I wanted to do something similar to that.

I’d seen Dexter themed cupcakes with the glass slides and a dot of red in the middle, but I wanted to do something slightly easier than trying to make perfect sugar rectangles. The broken glass sounded challenging but without the requirement of symmetrical lines. Broken glass easily became the winner.

First I made red velvet cupcakes using Brown Eyed Baker’s recipe (but doubled).

Don’t you just love the color of red velvet cupcake batter? It’s so bright! And perfect for bloody, stabby cupcakes.

Once the cupcakes were done and cooling, it was time to start making the “glass”.

You basically just need to dump sugar, corn syrup, water and cream of tartar into a pan and mix it until it’s incorporated. It’ll look like a big, weird mess and you’ll start to think to yourself, “I have no idea how this is going to become candy.” Put your disbelief aside and crank that sucker until you get a hot, boiling mess.

Having a thermometer is pretty important when you’re making candy. I didn’t have a candy thermometer, so I had to steal the one out of our BBQ grill outside. Improvising: it works.

Make sure you’ve got a baking sheet ready (I put a silpat on the bottom of my baking sheet for extra protection) during the last stages of your candy making process. You want to start watching it like a hawk when it starts getting closer. Let your bubbling, hot, sugary mess get up to 300 degrees and then pull it off the stove.

Quickly pour the mass of sugar onto your prepared baking sheet.

Get every drop out!

And let your hot, sugary candy sit until it cools down. You’ll be able to feel it when it’s ready for the next step – it’ll be a little sticky but hard to the touch. I think I waited 15-20 minutes for it to cool down before moving onto the next step.

I first used a mini mallet (like the ones you use to crack crab legs) on the candy, but that made it far too splintered.

A butter knife ended up being my stabbing implement of choice – it created much better cracks and was easier to control as I broke up the glass. I tried to create a variety of sizes and pieces, often rebreaking larger pieces to create smaller glass-like pieces.

I stuck various sized pieces and shapes into the cupcakes creating shards.

Then I created an “edible blood” made with corn syrup, corn starch, water and food coloring to create a bloodied effect on top of my pristine, white cream cheese frosting.

The effect turned out quite well, making the cupcakes look like they were bleeding out from the stabby shards of broken glass.

My co-workers seemed to enjoy the cupcakes enough to award me first place that day – woohoo!

This is my first place prize – a mixer with a $50 gift card to Vons inside!

Want to make your own candy glass? Instructions below!

Candy Glass:
Adapated from AllRecipes.com
2 cups water
1 cup light corn syrup
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Edible Blood:

1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon of water (more if needed)
8 drops red food coloring
1 drop blue food coloring

Combine all of the ingredients for the sugar glass – mix well and set over medium high heat. Using a thermometer, bring the mixture to a temperature of 300 degrees. Pour hot sugar onto a prepared baking sheet and let cool. Once cooled, break the glass with your choice of stabbing implement (I recommend a butter knife).

For the edible blood, I made a very small amount since it was only for my cupcakes. Combine all of the elements together until it created a thick-blood like mixture. Add more water if necessary to create a thinner mixture.