Eyeball Cookies

These little eyeball cookies taste as good as they look and they're looking right at you!  They come together quickly and are a great way to impress your Halloween guests.

Ingredients
1 cup salted butter, softened (use real butter or at least half real butter)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teas vanilla
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
red gel or powdered food coloring
2 Tbsp vodka
fine paint brush
green candy melts (I added a little bit of brown to make the irises muddy)
small piping bag
chocolate chips


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cream together the butter and powdered sugar, blend-in the vanilla.  Add the flour and combine until the dough is smooth and uniform.

Roll walnut sized balls and place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Combine the vodka with enough red food coloring to give it a nice dark tint.  Use the paint brush to add random lines to make the eye look bloodshot.  The very top of the cookie will be covered so start brushstrokes there and drag the coloring down the sides, tapering down the lines and making branches wherever possible.

Bake 9-10 minutes.

Remove and allow to cool.

Melt the green candy melts according to directions and pour into a piping bag.  Cut the tip off, leaving about a 1/4" wide opening.

Pipe an iris and when cool enough to touch it, press it down flat.  Then quickly add a chocolate chip.  Allow the chocolate to set.

Geek Cupcakes: The Cupcake is Not a Lie (Portal) and Beholder Cupcakes

Sometimes an ordinary cupcake just won't do.  My family of gaming geeks needed cupcakes that reflected their interests.  So I created two elaborate geek styles to suit them.  For one of these cupcakes, I made small cakes inspired by the black forest cake from Portal.  The cake was a lie but the cupcake is not a lie!  It's more like a half-truth.  I also felt that I needed to pay homage to D&D and Magic The Gathering so I created Beholder Cupcakes  These can be any flavor but are decorated with carefully created faces and eyestalks.

The little Portal cupcakes were baked in 5 oz tins--washed and repurposed evaporated milk cans.  The tiny cherries are cherry jelly beans, sliced in half.  White birthday cake candles are the perfect center decoration.

The beholder cupcakes sport eerie fondant eyes painted with food color and black piping gel.  Notice the discolored teeth and whites of the eyes.  Each has just four eyestalks--enough to give the idea of the beholder eyes.  The full amount would just clutter the little cakes. 

Check out my step-by-step instructions for each of these, including photos, on Instructables:

The Cupcake is Not a Lie
Beholder Cupcakes