Bride of Frankenstein Cupcakes

Happy day 2 of cupcake week within the october halloween countdown (sheesh its a lot going on!) Even before I saw any Frankenstein movies, I knew and loved the image of the Bride of Frankenstein.  Maybe it was her crazy curly hair (curly heads always stick together.) And now that I am getting unstoppable white hairs along my brow line, I love her even more.  So it was only natural (unnatural?) that she should get the cupcake topper treatment.  And, luckily for all of us, she is much easier to make on a cupcake than bringing a dead body back to life! You just need

1. black, orange (or yellow) melting candies (like Wilton’s has at craft stores),
2. white buttercream frosting for the cupcake base and for her little lightning patterns of white, shocked hair,
3. some royal frosting,
4. some fun Halloween sprinkles (or just black and white ones as a nod to the silver screen of the past)
5. and some food coloring and vodka (though you will want to drink Riesling, hefeweizen or schnapps after seeing the movie, with its very stereotypical German setting!)

She can be made with left over frosting from the zombie cookies, or other snacks.  All these frostings can be stored in the fridge all  month for when you need them, which is another tip to make celebrating the season not such a. chore. Make once, maybe double batch it, and use multiple times…Dare I say, giving it new life?

Steps:

1. make cupcakes (any kind will do- for a fool proof chocolate cupcake like I used, check back at the end of this CUPCAKE WEEK!)
2. if doing a black and white version, tint the buttercream grey (but reserve some white for her hair strikes), if doing color version, leave it white or any color you like (do reserve some white for her hair strikes) and frost the cupcakes, smoothing the top with an offset spatula or the back of a knife and a steady hand- recipe below for the buttercream, not a steady hand. 
3. microwave the black candy melts using 15 second increments, until all melted and ready to pour in a piping bag
4. quickly, before the candy melt hardens, pipe out some crazy bride of Frankenstein hair onto parchment paper, either doing it free hand, or trace out a shape before-hand that you can pipe over, see template below. keep the bottom of the hair piece about 1’’ wide to match up with the face you will draw in the next step. let the hair dry and harden
5. directly on the smooth frosted cupcake, pipe out a little face shape, taking care that the top of the head is about 1’’ wide, using either white royal frosting if doing the black and white look, or whatever flesh tone you would like. recipe below for the royal icing.
6. while you wait for that to set, place the cooled hair piece right along the top of her head
7. melt the yellow or orange candy melts and pipe out little lightening shapes on parchment- either free hand or tracing ones you have drawn, see template below if needed.
8. once the face has hardened dip a tiny paint brush in one drop of food coloring blended with a couple drops of vodka. it should be thick and easy to paint with.  make sultry, heavily lashed eyes, either flirty or shocked looking.  add a little beauty mark, ‘cause you know, beauty.  and with some red food color mixed with a couple drops of vodka, paint on a pouty mouth- use black if doing black and white, feel free to use the template as a guide.
   
9. now for the fun part, add the lightning strikes and the sprinkles around her face and pipe on little zig zags of white buttercream in her hair.

The Bride of Frankenstein movie is such a doomed story of loneliness, misunderstanding and the universal need for love.  It’s a must see!  I am really growing to love the movies of the 30s.  They were so closely linked to literature (even though this movie takes huge liberties with the Frankenstein story, it intros with a scene with Mary Shelley talking with her guys, just hanging out, you know doing embroidery in a ball gown in a mansion while a storm rages on outside, just chatting about getting her genre creating novel published.  I immediately was like, ”I freakin’ love this movie.”) that it makes me sad for the movies of now-a-days that can’t even correctly reference the movies based movies based on books that they are based on.  Sigh.  But at least this gem is available on amazon prime to enjoy!  Sidenote, the Frankenstein movies of the 30s make perfect Octoberfest/ Halloween fair- the costumes put you straight into a beer hall feeling!  So, after having some sausage and pretzels, have some schnapps, munch on a cupcake and enjoy!