Eat, Drink and Be Scary

If ghosts could have babies, I'm thinking this is what they would look like.

These sweet little meringue ghosts are so cute, I can't stand it.

I first saw them on one of my favourite blogs, 1o1 Cookbooks, but then I started seeing them everywhere.

Of course, I had to have them, but sweet as they are, I thought they needed just a little something ... perhaps a pedestal to celebrate their cutitude ... so I perched the pudgy spooksters atop some chocolate cupcakes.

Now we're talking. The taste is spooky good, somewhere between an old-fashioned, chocolate birthday cake slathered with boiled icing and rocky road-style brownies. You know the ones with that ooey-gooey topping of mini marshallows, chopped nuts and chocolate? I'll try to post a recipe for those someday.

Back to the ghosts. I tried a few different things for eyes (chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles) but finally decided I liked the look of the shiny silver dragee candies best. I like shiny things. Watch your teeth, though. You certainly wouldn't want to suffer a dental injury on the night before the festival of candy gluttony that is Halloween.

MERINGUE GHOST CUPCAKES
The recipe for the meringue ghosts is adapted from one I found on 101 Cookbooks. The cupcakes were my idea. It doesn't really matter which you make first, the cupcakes or the meringue ghosts; both can be made up to a day ahead and stored in an airtight container until you're ready to assemble them.

For the cupcakes:
120 g (4 ounces) good quality dark chocolate, chopped
125 ml (1/2 cup) butter
250 ml (1 cup) white sugar
50 ml (1/4 cup) brown sugar
5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla
3 eggs
175 ml (3/4 cup) unbleached flour
75 ml (1/3 cup) cocoa
1 ml (1/4 tsp) salt
125 ml (1/2 cup) pecan pieces that have been lightly toasted in a dry frying pan

Method:
Preheat oven to 160 C (325 F). Line a muffin tin with paper cupcake cups and lightly spray with cooking spray.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter but don’t let it get so hot that it sputters. Turn off the heat, add chopped chocolate and set aside for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to melt into the butter. Stir chocolate and butter together until smooth, let cool for a few minutes and then stir in the sugars. Let this mixture cool some more until it is just warm to the touch.
Meanwhile, sift together flour, cocoa and salt into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
Now stir eggs, one at a time, into the chocolate mixture, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture, add nuts and gently stir everything together just until well-combined and smooth. Do not overmix.
Spoon batter into cupcake cups and bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating the pan once to ensure even baking. The cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out not quite clean. (These cupcakes should result in a fudgy, brownie-style cake.)
Cool cupcakes in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

For the meringue ghosts:
2 very fresh, large egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of salt
pinch of cream of tartar
175 ml (3/4 cup) icing sugar, sifted
tiny silver candy dragees, mini chocolate chips or chocolate sprinkles for eyes
1 milk or dark chocolate bar

Tools:
Spotlessly clean metal mixing bowl (if the bowl has any traces of oil or grease at all, meringue will not whip)pastry bag or large sturdy freezer bag for piping
1 cm (half-inch) plain, round piping tip


Method:
Preheat oven to 95 C (200F).
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whip egg whites, salt and cream of tartar in an electric mixer until white and frothy, then start sprinkling in the sugar a spoonful at a time with the machine still running. Keep whipping until the whites become glossy and full of volume; this can take as long as 10-15 minutes, depending on the speed of your mixer and the freshness of the eggs. Stop the mixer and check the meringue. It should be able to form stiff peaks that hold their shape.
Fit the piping tip into the pastry bag. If using a plastic freezer bag, snip off one corner just large enough to hold the piping tip, drop the tip into the corner and make sure it’s secure.
Scoop the meringue into the piping bag, twist the top closed and pipe little ghost-like mounds of meringue onto the baking sheets by starting with a 5 cm (2 in) circle and keep working upwards as if you were filling a soft-serve ice-cream cone. Make 12 little ghosts.
Now, with either your finger or a pair of clean tweezers, carefully press two candy eyes into the face of each ghost. (If you have trouble with this step, not to worry; you can always dab a little melted chocolate on for eyes after the ghosts finish baking.)
Place the baking sheets in the oven and bake for an hour. After an hour, rotate the pan, leave the oven door open a crack and bake for another 30 minutes. Check one of the ghosts by touching it lightly. It should no longer be gummy or wobbly. If they still seem wet and sticky, bake them for 10-15 minutes longer until they are dry to the touch. Turn off the oven and leave the meringues to dry for two or three hours, or overnight.

To assemble the cupcakes:
Use a sharp, serrated knife to slice off a tiny amount of the top from the cupcakes, creating a flat surface. Melt the chocolate bar and use it as glue to secure the ghosts to the cupcakes: Paint a little of the melted chocolate on top of each cupcake, perch the ghosts on top and set aside to let the chocolate set up. (If you decided not to apply the candy eyes before baking, you can go ahead and dab some on now. Just dip a toothpick into some of the remaining melted chocolate and dab a couple of beady little eyes on the face each ghost. So cute!)
Variation: Mix 0.5 ml (one eighth tsp) peppermint flavouring into the meringue for chocolate-peppermint meringue ghost cupcakes.