Grisly Ghastly Halloween skulls

 I had so many ideas for Halloween this idea that I just did not get around to making so with 1 day to go I decided to do up a grisly batch of cake pops.

There are already a stack of skull pops around the blogiverse which are generally white with the eyes, nose and teeth drawn on with edible pen. They are pretty cute and cool, but I wanted mine to look a little bit more frightful.

You know that gritty, ghoulish just dug up dirty look so I decided to try out something new and dip the pops and then brush a different color on the top,

Did I succeed in making them look like old decaying skulls. I'm not sure whether they do look like skulls, maybe some kind of Zombie, wolfman, skull hybrid....what do you think?

Oh and this one here kinda looks like the terminator...

I said kinda :)

Whatever you think they look like, they are suitably ghastly for a Halloween display.

Here I am mixing up the bloody body parts....or maybe it's just cookie truffle pops. Either way it looks kinda gruesome.

And a bit of a hint if you can get your hands on actual Black Melts instead of having to colour your own with oil based chocolate colour I say do it. I would say mixing in powdered color to the candy melts my least fav part of the whole process.

Ghastly Skull Cake Pops

Cake pop or Cookie Truffle mix ready to shape - if it's red even better.....
lollipop sticks
Black candy melts (or dark chocolate colored black with special oil based color) mixed with copha or paramount crystals
White candy melts
Marshmallows
Black edible pen
Ready made edible eyes
clean food safe brush

Shape the mixture into little skulls by making ovals and then pressing the bottom in a little smaller and making indents for the eye cavity and mouth.

Place the cake pop mixture skulls onto a parchment lined tray and chill in the fridge until firm.

Melt the black candy melts and the paramount crystals/copha, at medium low heat in the microwave at bursts of 60 - 90 seconds. The mixture should be quite fluid so make sure you add enough copha/paramount crystals (about 1:7 ration 1 being the candy melts - it changes with brands and even colors so see what works). Dip one end of the lollipop stick into the melted black candy melts and insert into the bottom of the skull - where the neck would be and lay back down onto the parchment lined tray. When all the skulls have lollipop sticks inserted return them to the fridge to chill until set.

Once the sticks are secure in the skulls remove them from the fridge. Check that the candy melts are still fluid and if not reheat in the microwave at medium low. Dip the whole skull into the black candy melts and remove, holding the skull upside down to allow excess to drip off and then pop the skull upright into styrofoam block to set. Repeat for remaining skulls.

Melt the white candy melts in the microwave at medium low heat at short bursts. Using a food safe brush brush the white candy over the black dipped skulls starting at the nose area and working your way out. Repeat for all skulls.

Take the edible eyes and using some of the extra melted white candy stick them into the eye sockets.

Using food safe scissors (that is scissors you only use for food purposes) cut up small pieces of marshmallow to fit into the mouth cavity. Using extra white candy melt stick the marshmallow mouth into the skulls mouth cavity and then use the edible black pen to draw on teeth.

If you like you can leave the skulls without the marshmallow mouths or edible eyes and they still look kinda cool.

Have a Happy Halloween Xx

I have a few Halloween recipes in my book Sweets on a Stick which is being released in just over a month in the US. As it is a book for decorating with kids most of the ideas are a little bit more simple than this, but they are great fun, plus I have a made from scratch recipe for red velvet cake pops which are the perfect pop to make your finished treats look extra gruesome. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.