Medusa cupcakes for Cecil Castelucci
Cecil Castelucci is a friend of mine, rock star, Hunger Games tribute, awesome person and a prolific writer. She’s written many YA books and is well known for her comic The P.L.A.I.N. Janes.
Now with the release of her 10th book, The Year of the Beasts, she ventures back into comics…sort of. With Nate Powell providing the illustrations this book is part novel and part comic providing the reader with intense visuals to flow along with Cecil’s prose.
For the book launch at Skylight Books in Silverlake, I wanted to make her something special that reflected the book but was still fun and of course, edible! The strong Medusa character on the front of the cover made me realize that little green snakes were a must.
This was a little bit tougher because I had made mini cupcakes, which meant that the decorations had to be mini too. Very mini.
First I melted down some Wilton green candy melts and poured it into a squeeze bottle.
These bottles are the best because they give perfect lineweights every time and make decorating a breeze. I squeezed out green squiggles onto parchment…
…then added the TINIEST of red hearts to represent a forked snake tongue.
A few melted yellow candy melts and toothpick allowed me to make small yellow-y snake eyes.
A quick pop in the freezer for a few minutes and the snake heads were set, then I placed them on top of the mini cupcakes.
At first I was worried they just looked like weeds, but the Kid came over and said, “Hey Medusas” so I knew they were at least recognizable.
The cupcakes were a big hit at the book signing where Cecil read from the book, showed concept art and signed books for the long line of fans who came to see her.
I ended up going to a second Cecil book signing and this time I took the kids. During the Q&A the Baby (holding his Tony Stark doll) raised his hand. I was part horrified part curious as to what he was going to ask her. His question? “Do you like the Avengers?” Well, I guess he’s ready for life in Hall H question line at comic-con from now on. FYI: her answer was yes.
