It’s time for one of my favorite posts of the whole year: a Halloween recipe! This year my inspiration comes from Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, a parody of the Jane Austen classic. A reader requested a recipe from the original Sense and Sensibility earlier this year, but although it’s always important to me to take requests when I can, I ran into 2 problems:

1) There aren’t many foods mentioned in the book, and those that are get just a fleeting mention.

2)* deep breath * As a self-professed lover of classic books, this isn’t easy for me to say, but … I’ve never finished a Jane Austen book. * cringes and ducks behind a desk as everyone throws weighty Austen omnibuses at me *

I know, I know—it’s unforgivable. In my defense, I DO think she’s a skilled writer. She’s witty and creates believable characters. And I’ve STARTED many of her books…but I always wind up DNFing halfway through, despite enjoying them in the beginning. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think the problem is, despite the dynamic characters, the plot doesn’t extend beyond the character’s personal lives. The will-they-won’t-they of Elinor and Edward is interesting, but I need higher stakes to keep me invested beyond the first 25 chapters.

Still, I take reader requests very seriously, so I found a middle ground. Several years ago, I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I snagged a copy of the second Austen parody novel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I liked this one even more than the zombie book. Not only did I finish it, but I was up waaay past my bedtime several times because it was too good to put down. Whenever I felt the story start to drag, the author threw in fang beasts, sea witches, underwater colonies, or a sinister island mystery. Just the kind of high-stakes story I like. 😉

Plus, there’s LOTS of food! Sir John’s black rum punch is mentioned several times throughout the book, as are several seafood recipes and quirky teatime dishes. Grilled prawns and scone-flavored ration loaf sounded fun to make but didn’t feel Halloween-y enough for me. Instead, I decided to make a cupcake tribute to the various tentacled sea beasts in the book, particularly Colonel Brandon (I don’t think you can call something a spoiler if it’s on the cover of a book, so I’ll just come right out and say it: Colonel Brandon has a bunch of face tentacles resulting from a sea witch curse).

My punch recipe uses Kraken black rum (how perfect is that?), along with ginger beer for a bit of zing and orange juice for freshness. I threw in just enough blue curacao to make it a funky green color and just a little bitters for complexity. The cupcakes are plain vanilla, mostly because they’ve got a TON going on visually and I didn’t want to overdo it. The cake itself is a teal-purple swirl, and I piped blue frosting squiggles for water. The sea monsters on top are made of purple Laffy Taffy, pink Nerds candy, and icing decoration eyeballs I bought at the store.

They’re just right for a Halloween party—monster-themed or otherwise! 🙂

 A

Colonel Brandon’s Curse Cupcakes & Sir John’s Rum Punch

“…the dancing was more spirited than usual, attributable to a punch Sir John was serving that he called Black Devil, made from a rum so dark that no light could pass through it.”

“Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, suffered from a cruel affliction, the likes of which the Dashwood sisters had heard of, but never seen firsthand. He bore a set of long, squishy tentacles protruding grotesquely from his face, writhing this way and that, like hideous living facial hair of slime green.”

— Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

• For the Cupcakes
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 eggs, room temp
  • 2 1/2 tbsp sour cream
  • 3/4 tsp distilled white vinegar
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • purple and teal gel food coloring
• For the Frosting
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 cups powdered sugar, separated
  • 2 tbsp milk, separated
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • teal, blue, and green gel food coloring
• For the Decorations
  • 36 fun-size grape Laffy Taffy
  • 12 large icing decoration eyes
  • pink Nerds candy
• For Sir John’s Kraken Rum Punch
  • 1 1/2 oz Kraken black rum
  • 2 oz Gosling’s ginger beer
  • 1 oz orange juice
  • 1/2 oz blue curacao
  • 3 drops Angostura bitters

      

Makes 12 cupcakes and 1 cocktail

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. 1. To Make the Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°. Fill a cupcake tin with liners and set aside. Whisk together all the dry ingredients except the sugar in a medium bowl and set aside.
   2. Cream the butter on medium speed in a large bowl. Beat in the sugar and vanilla until combined. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat in the sour cream and vinegar. Alternate beating in the dry mix and buttermilk.
   3. Divide batter evenly between 2 bowls. Dye one with 6 drops purple gel coloring and the other with 8 drops teal gel.
   4. Divide the purple batter evenly between the cupcake liners. Spoon the teal batter on top. Stir gently a few times with a scooping motion to swirl the colors (not too much or it will muddy the colors). Bake for 15-17 minutes for until the tops of the cupcakes spring back when firmly tapped with a finger. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
   5. To Make the Frosting: Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl and set aside. Beat the butter on medium speed in a standing mixer until smooth. Beat in 1 cup of the powdered sugar and beat until combined, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl if necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of milk. Alternate beating in the remaining powdered sugar and milk. Beat in 25 drops teal gel, 15 drops blue, and 3 drops green.
   6. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (such as a Wilton 2A tip) and pipe squiggles across each cupcake to make waves.
   7. To Decorate: Shape 1 Laffy Taffy into a ball. Pinch off a tiny amount and set aside. Flatten the ball slightly and stick on an eye. Roll the pinched portion into a small coil. Shape into a “V” and place on top of the eye to make an eyebrow. Place in the center of a cupcake. Divide 2 Laffy Taffy in half (giving you 4 pieces) and shape the pieces into tentacles. Place 4 rows of 2 Nerds on each tentacle (these will be the suckers). Place the tentacles around the head on the cupcake, pressing gently into the frosting “waves”. Repeat with remaining Taffy, eyes, and Nerds until all the cupcakes are decorated.

      

   8. To Make the Cocktail: Fill a rocks glass half full with ice. Add all ingredients and stir gently to combine.

      

   9. Serve in a bleak island shanty surrounded by an ocean teaming with murderous monsters!

 

 

Try more cocktail recipes! 🙂

The Raven Cocktail from Edgar Allan Poe

Siren Notes on the Rocks from The Odyssey

Starfleet Punch from Star Trek

Sugar Plum Punch

The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Romulan Ale

Smoking Bishop

 

Want to suggest the next Book of the Month? Email me here!