Maggots cleaning wounds Cupcake Tutorial

 Maggot Cupcakes. A gross out horror treat for Halloween.

Here I show you how to make and paint skin and maggots that taste divine!

These creepy cupcakes recreate the medical practice of using live fly larvae to clean wounds. The marzipan is perfect for skin and maggots and will get you an amazing reaction at your Halloween party.

These were originally for an event at the beautiful, Victorian Barts Pathology Museum London – a hidden gem for fans of human specimens.

YOU WILL NEED

• As many cupcakes as you please – each with around 0.5 to 1cm deep frosting/buttercream
• Red, and black food colouring
• White Marzipan (leave as is or colour to desired skin tone with gel colours)
• Sugar syrup or edible piping gel
• Paint brushes

Method

1. Using a round cutter that is at least a size bigger than the top of your cupcakes cut a circle of thinly rolled marzipan for each cupcake.
2. Place the marzipan over the buttercream top and with your hands smooth around the top of the cupcake. This locks your buttercream in.
3. Shape the marzipan into a wound using a bone tool or your little finger (if you have short nails). Make them all slightly different. These ones were based on ulcers and if you want to get creative/gross yourself out, have a look at pictures of real wounds for this stage.
4. Dilute the red food colouring with a glaze (sugar syrup or piping gel work well) and paint the wounds. The marzipan already looks like healthy skin so you can just paint the wound areas.
5. Roll some marzipan into a very thin, long sausage and snip into maggot lengths with scissors. You’ll need around 7 for each cupcake (odd numbers always work best I find)
6. Round both ends of each maggot by rolling against your finger.
7. Paint one end of each maggot black for the head and, if you have the patience, paint a few little black stripes on each body for the segments.
8. Scatter the maggots artistically on to your cupcakes. Arrange some away from the centre to give impression they will crawl over the edge if you watch them for too long…