As I got deeper into Zilly Rosen's "Zombie Cupcakes: From the Grave to the Table with 16 Cupcake Corpses," I found myself thinking about Bobby "Boris" Pickett's smash hit, "The Monster Mash." Although I was just a kid in October of 1962 when the song became number one on the Billboard charts, I remember that year's Halloween not only for the song, but also for the radio and television reports my parents and teachers were talking about - the Cuban missile crisis. Through it all, though, there was candy, even cupcakes, the homemade kind, offered in vanilla or chocolate. Ditto for the frosting. And, I don't remember cupcakes being decorated. In fact, the cupcake papers were considered decoration, white paper for regular cupcakes, pastel paper for fancy occasions, like birthdays. Pink paper, however, was just wrong for October, so we ate our cupcakes from green, or yellow paper, at Halloween. Since then, we've watched cupcakes evolve from the simple to the sublime, but they can be spine-tingling, too - just peek at Rosen's "Zombies Rising Mud Cupcakes, if you dare. If zombies aren't eerie enough for you, Rosen liberates 15 other macabre cupcake recipes from almond-flavored socket-blasting "Eye Poppers" to ""The Crows," a fetching "maggot"-infested tribute to the subtle flavor of white velvet cake. Should you be looking for an even creepier cupcake, on the scale of, say, - a missile crisis, check out Rosen's "T-Virus Blue Banana Cupcakes." Research "Zombie Cupcakes," at www.andrewsmcmeel.com, or at a book-selling facility near you.
Sue Ade is a syndicated food writer with broad experience and interest in the culinary arts. She has worked and resided in the Lowcountry of South Carolina since 1985 and may be reached at kitchenade@yahoo.com.
