I like scary things and cute things, so the idea of combining the two sounded like fun. How cute could a cupcake be, if it were the villain from a horror series? I chose Jigsaw! I would have done more takes, but I've been pretty busy lately! :D I'm not an artist, I can't sculpt, I can't even draw a human face...so this is really rough. Without the swirly red cheeks, you may not have known who my cupcake was. Haha. :D

Step 1: Tools

Cake batter/cupcake mix
Crystal Head Vodka Shot Glasses
PAM
Marshmallow fondant - red/white.black (optional)
Fruit roll up - grape
Toothpick
Food coloring

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Oven = 325 for 17 mins

Step 2: Skulls

I love vodka, Crystal Head Vodka, to be exact. It's so beautiful. There is a set of shot glasses that you can find in some sets, but they are pretty rare. My husband got ours from his "business trip" to Vegas. So, what I did was....

Made my cake batter/cupcake mix, PAM'd the shot glasses really well, put them in an oven at 325 degrees for 17 minutes. You can see how full they were in the photo (pre-oven). They were perfect, they rose out of the tops of the skulls in the oven, and rested right at the top when they cooled down.

I put them in the fridge and when they had cooled down, I tugged on a skull and found out that it could be removed from the shot glass, with the impression of a skull! THAT'S CRAZY!!!

The ideas are endless, but the time was limited. :) I wanted to make aliens, the Jigsaw head trap thing, wow, I don't know, I had tons of ideas, they're jotted down in my iphone. Seriously, there is no end to the options of having a skull-molded cupcake. Insanity.

Step 3: Forming the Head

I pressed out my shape of white marshmallow fondant until it gave me the size I was looking for. Then I tried to get it to overlap nicely and I pinched and cut where I wanted to, in order for it to work out right. Originally I had cut open his mouth to make him into a puppet TOO...but I ate his jaw. :( Oh well.

You can add strategically to the face, but you should really be ready with the thickness of the fondant in the areas that you need it, because it looks better that way. It's not easy to hide seams in something this small, and so delicate. I added some chin and cheeks.

Nose - I would say that was my failure. It needs to be long, big, thick and draping. But I didn't have the thickness in the fondant for it and I didn't want to make it uglier by attaching more...like a MR. Potato Head or something. Plus, I think it was the eyebrow/nose ratio in the shot glass that didn't really work for Jigsaw's nose. But I tried to make the rest of him work. :)

Just keep playing with the fondant until you get the look that you're going for. :)

Step 4: Features

Eyes - I rolled 2 red fondant balls, piping gel to glue them into the eye sockets, then I stabbed them with a toothpick and filled them in with black food coloring. Then I went around the eye, eye socket with the same toothpick and coloring. I totally messed up on the other eye and got black dye all over my white fondant. I was so pissed, lol. So I ran for a Qtip and I wet the end and brushed, smeared and massaged the black around and "aged" my cupcake. That's why it's grayish and textured-looking. Maybe it was a pleasant accident...I'm still not sure.

Cheeks, I added two white mounds, then I rolled red strings out of fondant (very carefully). I put piping gel on the cheek mounds, just spread out, not caring about the lines. Then I coiled the red on there, tightly to begin with. Then I used a toothpick to spread the coil out, made my spacing and let it dry. Did the same for the other cheek. (But I ended up adding black to match the smeared rest of the face from the eye-accident.

Mouth - after the cheeks were in place and it was time to work my way down - I made a small red slice and shoved it up, under his nose and between his cheeks and glued it on there with the piping gel. I put the lines in there with a toothpick, and the same for the other shapes and lines in the jaw. (Black food coloring again.)

Hair - Grape fruit-roll-up. !! I used to love these as a kid. For some reason, I was under the impression from the package that this would be purple. I got it for another project and I started to eat it. After I saw the color, I figured it would be perfect for his hair. I just got the undersides of the hair damp so they stuck to each other. I cut a normal fringe haircut into the fruit roll up and ate the trimmings. That was fun. :)

Step 5: Enjoy!

It depends on what you're making, what your theme is, or the occasion. If you have a set of these shot glasses and a small event, it would be really cool to have a set theme and to be able to work these into it. As long as you choose something versatile, chances are, everyone will be impressed with your skull cupcakes because no one else has seen a skull-shaped cupcake! My original plan was to make BRAIN cupcakes, and to eat them out of the skulls. (Just pipe pink brains on top.) But I went to eat one *guilty* and the whole head came out. Hahaha. Lucky me! Now I can do more with what I already own.

Ps. Dan Aykroyd - creator of Crystal Skull Vodka, if you see this...will you sign my boob? When you do a signing in Los Angeles...lol.