Dessert: The Crows

Recipe by /contributors/zilly-rosen Make the decorations the day before baking This cupcake is inspired by a scene from the movie 28 Days Later, where a crow sits overhead with a piece of zombie corpse in his mouth. We've chosen a deathly pale skin color

Ingredients

3 large egg whites
3/4 cup milk
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1/3 cups white all-purpose, cake, or pastry flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp (4 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, softened

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with 12 large paper cupcake liners. Put the egg whites, 2 tablespoons of the milk, and the vanilla extract in a medium bowl and mix together with a fork.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar. Add the butter and the remaining milk and, using an electric mixer, beat together until combined. Gradually beat in the egg white mixture. Spoon the batter into the paper liners. Bake for about 20 minutes, turning once halfway through baking, until well risen and firm to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
Dust the counter with cornstarch and roll out the fondant to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Using a 2 1/2 to 3-inch round cutter, cut out 12 circle s that will cover the cupcakes.
Use a teaspoon to create an indentation in the center of each cupcake and spoon 2 teaspoons raspberry jam into each. Cover each jam circle with a fondant circle.
To make the crows, divide the black Half & Half into 12 equal-size pieces. Reserving a tiny amount for the lower beak, roll one piece of the Half & Half into a ball. Squeeze and pinch the top of the ball to form the head. Squeeze, pinch, and flatten the other end of the ball to create the tail. From the head, squeeze and pinch out a long, pointy beak shape. Roll the reserved piece of Half & Half into another beak shape, but curving down at the tip. Attach below the upper beak with water, to make the beak appear open. Repeat to make another 11 crows.
With a craft knife, cut a long slit from just inside the edge of the fondant circle to 1/2 inch away from the edge on the opposite edge of the circle. Make a second cut that starts at the same point as the first and is the same length, but ends 1/4 inch apart from the first cut.
Pull up the fondant strip to expose the raspberry jam below, then use water to attach the point of the strip to the inside of the crow's beak.
Attach the crow to the fondant circle with water. If necessary, anchor the crow to the cupcake with a small piece of toothpick. Using a pastry bag or parchment paper cone fitted with a fine plain piping tip, pipe red Royal Icing eyes onto the crow. Use a craft knife to score crow footprints on the fondant. Place the Maggots in the raspberry jam. Repeat to decorate the remaining cupcakes.

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