Truffles The Rat

Truffles the Rat is just that, a big rat truffle and uses the same ganache recipe as my peppermint bark brains. 

Ingredients:
5 oz. white chocolate, divided
4 oz. dark chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 red hots

Special Equipment:
Wilton Rat candy mold

Directions:

Break dark chocolate into small pieces and combine with cream and butter in microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute at 50% power, then stir until incorporated. Mixture should be thick and smooth. Stir in vanilla extract and refrigerate. 

This is as good a place as any to talk about tempering chocolate. Even though white chocolate isn’t real chocolate it still needs to be tempered because of the cocoa butter. Candy melts don’t, which is why they are easier to use, but I don’t think they taste as good. I’m sure this method isn’t proper, but it works for me and it’s easy. First, I never melt chocolate all the way in the microwave, always leave a few lumps and then stir until the chocolate is completely smooth and melted. I also always use a glass bowl and stir by smearing the chocolate along the sides with the back of the spoon. Keep stirring or smearing until the chocolate has cooled. I do the wrist test, just like you would with a baby bottle, in fact that’s where I got the idea, but it turns out it’s a legitimate thing. Drizzle a small amount of chocolate on the inside of your wrist and if you don’t feel the heat, it’s good to go. Tempering prevents that chalky look once the chocolate cools, giving it a nice sheen and also makes it nice and solid. Alright let’s get back to the recipe.

Microwave 2 oz. white chocolate, again for one minute at 50% power, add 20 second increments as needed until almost melted. Temper the chocolate and then pour into the mold, smoothing chocolate along the sides and into crevices with the back of a spoon. Once the mold is completely coated keep rotating the mold as the chocolate cools to avoid pooling. Once the chocolate stops moving, refrigerate for one minute. 

The chocolate should now be set enough to push red hots into place as eyes. The eyes don’t have to be perfect, I like the irregular white filmy look, and it adds character. 

Refrigerate for 2 more minutes and the white chocolate should be completely cooled. By now the truffle mixture should be set.  Spoon it into the center of the mold gently tapping to get it level. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Microwave remaining 3 oz. of white chocolate until melted. Again temper, and it will be cooled enough so it doesn’t melt the ganache. Spoon chocolate along the center of the mold, gently tapping it will move the chocolate to edges without going over them. Refrigerate until set. 

To serve just turn over mold onto a plate and gently tap to remove. Allow it to come to room temperature before cutting. 

The kids really like it when I insert a few candy bones, into the ganache. One year I used a gummy brain. Nothing like giving the kids yet another reason to fight over the head. Did anyone else start singing the Pinky and the Brain theme song? No, just me huh?

Eating chocolate rat doesn’t bother me in the least. The thought of biting into artificially fruity flavored gummy candy in the middle of rich chocolaty goodness makes me gag a little. So this year I added a twist that was more to my liking, we’ll call this new twist Gourmet Rat.

Gourmet Rat is almost the same as plain rat but with raspberry blood. Also since Gourmet Rat tastes fancier, he should look fancier. You could add a tiny rhinestone tiara or you could give him a swanky pink tail and ears, which are tastier and less problematic if swallowed. 

Make the ganache as you would with the plain rat, or if you’d like you can get a little fancy with the flavors. If using extracts stick with ½ teaspoon.  Orange extract is one of my favorites, or half vanilla/half orange for just a hint. If you’d like to substitute a liqueur, I would suggest 1/2 – 1 tablespoon since the flavors aren’t as concentrated. 

You are still going to use 2oz of white chocolate to coat the inside of the mold, but start by just melting a quarter ounce of it, with half of a red candy melt, for a perfect shade of lab rat pink. You can use the back of a spoon to push the pink chocolate around the inside of the tail area. For the inside ear area you just need a teeny amount that you can apply with something small like a toothpick.

Refrigerate while you melt the remaining 1.75 oz. of white chocolate. Make sure the chocolate is cool enough to pass the wrist test.  Even then it will still be warm enough to heat the tiny  pink ear bits so quickly apply a thin coat over the pink areas and then don’t muck with them so you don’t disturb the pink chocolate underneath. Coat the rest of the mold and return to the refrigerator. 

For a quick and easy raspberry sauce microwave 2 tablespoons of raspberry jam with 1/2 teaspoon of water for 10 seconds or just enough to warm the jam so you can easily incorporate the water. I’ll be honest here, even with the added water don’t expect it to gush when slicing into Mr. Gourmet. You can experiment with more sauce, or runnier sauce, but it’s pretty darn tasty as is.

I use Rose Cottage raspberry jam. In fact, for all my jam needs, I turn to Rose Cottage products. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, they just happen to make the only jams available at the local grocery stores that remind me of my grandmother’s and that’s the highest praise any jam can have in my opinion. There is not a lot info about them online, but I did find Amish House Market that sells a limited selection of their jams for a reasonable price. I have not had any experience ordering from them. 



Spoon the sauce down the middle of the rat and this time put it in the freezer for a few minutes. The raspberry sauce won’t freeze solid, but it should cool enough that it’s a thick gel.


Since the jam is taking up space in the mold, remove 2 tablespoons from the ganache and set aside to do something tasty with later. Try to quickly get a layer of ganache over the raspberry sauce, pressing along the side edges above the sauce line to get a nice seal between the ganache and white chocolate. You don’t want to put pressure on the center of the mold and squish the raspberry sauce out. Once you have ganache covering all the sauce and sealed along the edges, distribute the rest of it evenly across the mold. 

Return the rat to the refrigerator until firm. Then melt and then temper the remaining white chocolate. Smooth out the chocolate to the edges of the mold.


I got a little sloppy filling this rat, probably because I let the truffle mixture get too firm. Ideally you want a small edge of white chocolate showing all the way around, this will adhere to the last layer of white chocolate creating a nicely sealed chocolate shell. If the filling covers that edge, even just a thin layer it will affect the integrity of the seal.  The raspberry sauce will find its way out and leak. To counter this I stored the rat upside down and maybe that’s good advice for all saucy rats. Bring the rat to room temperature in the upside down position and then right before serving turn it right side up. Of course if you’d like a little blood to ooze from your rat, which is a nice effect, turn it right side up sooner, the sauce is thick and it will be a slow leak. 

When it comes to making rat the flavor combinations are endless and the joyful smiles they bring are priceless. I only wish someone would create a two headed rat mold. And don’t make the mistake of thinking you can only serve rat after Labor Day. Rat is a yummy addition to any special occasion. I’ve even had a request for birthday rat, (I added multicolored jimmies to bottom to be festive).

Andean Condor Gastric Acid

Prior to creating this label, I hadn't really thought about vultures.  They are just fuggly looking birds that eat dead stuff and show up in old westerns, right?

They are so much cooler than that, everything about their design has purpose.  Most of it's disgusting, but it's all very fascinating. I've also decided that vultures can be beautiful, cute even. 

I picked the Andean Condor from the New World vulture family because with it's 10 foot wingspan it's a huge bird, so I figure it should have lots of gastric acid to share.

If you'd like to learn some interesting stuff about vultures, here are a couple of sources that are as entertaining as they are enlightening.

There is some great information on New World Vultures at Real Monstrosities.

And this awesome video about vulture fluids from SciShow.

The label is short and sweet.  MS Office clip art and Freebooter font by GemFonts.

Since my bottle is opaque I didn't have to worry about contents, but if I were in mind to make some gastric acid.  I would mix a little pale yellow acrylic paint, with a touch of olive green and blend that into some floral water and pour it very slowly to get lots of tiny bubbles. 

Here's a label if you'd like to make your own bottle of acid.

Om Nom Pinhead

Pinhead Om Nom is the latest addition to my wonderful world of deranged Om Nom’s.

The Cenobites started out with such humble beginnings in The Hellbound Heart, but then it wasn't really their story, it belonged to Frank and Julia. As should have been the movie Hellraiser, which stayed very close to the book, except Doug Bradly stole the show like some twisted Shirley Temple. With his merciless black eyes and resonating voice, it’s no wonder he became everyone’s Cenobite sweetheart.

This clip contains some of his best lines. The Cenobites come in at the 5:30 mark.

Clive Barker writes about how the fans built their own mythology around those earlier pieces in his introduction to the first Hellraiser comic. There you will also find a synopsis of all the Epic Hellraiser issues.

I love the combination of artwork and prose as a medium to express those ideas. A good friend of mine is not only responsible for introducing me to the Hellraiser comics, but he also produced the incredible work of fan fiction, Hopes And The Damned.

Other examples of image and verse can be found in the collection at the Pyramid Gallery, which further explores the puzzle boxes created by Lemarchand. There are music boxes, artwork and clever histories.

Another interesting puzzle box is the Cilicium Pandoric. The story of the Cilicium Pandoric is the second story about Sister Cilice written by Barbie Wilde who also played the Female Cenobite in the movie Hellbound:Hellraiser II.

The first story was her contribution to the Hellbound Hearts anthology. I thought this quote from an interview on The Labyrinth is worth noting. "It was inspired by re-reading Clive's Hellbound Heart novella at that time (where the Lead Cenobite is depicted as female) and didn't come from working on the Hellbound movie in any way." I would have assumed it was based on her movie role, I tend to forget the cenobite that would later become Pinhead, was written as having "the voice of an excited girl".

A little more on my Om Nom, I meant to give him leathery duds, but I found a Photoshop filter that gave his outfit more of a vinyl look. I know I'll probably go to Hell for this, but it cracks me up to think of Pinhead Om Nom be-boppin' up to the other Cenobites in his cruelty free pleather pants.

OK, now I'm going to Hell for sure.

If you want to do a better job of coloring than I did, here's your chance.

Halloween Flamingos

My original vision was two dozen flamingos strewn across the front yard in various stages of demise. Decapitated, gut shot, rotting, tortured plastic flesh, pink flamingo carnage as far as the eye could see with a few flamingo cenobites thrown in to instill order. 

But I felt the kids were too young to see mommy hacking away at little pink bodies and I didn’t know how well those little plastic bodies would respond to the kind of treatment I had in mind. Instead I purchased only a half dozen flamingos from eBay, for a very reasonable price, if you don’t mind not having authentic Featherstone’s and outfitted them with very tame Halloween costumes that the kids came up with based on their interests at the time.

My only complaint is the legs don’t stay put. I don't know if this is just a problem with the knock-offs, I'm not really a flamingo connoisseur. The wire legs were always popping out of the slots molded into the plastic. So I ended up gluing mine in, but then they take more space to store. One of them had a defect, we’ll talk about him later. 

I had two criteria for the costumes. One was to use stuff on hand and the other was to use materials that would hold up to the cold and the rain.

I'll explain the least obvious accessories like Indiana Jones’ jacket, which is made from a child’s pirate costume boot cover.  

His lasso is a rope, the handle is what I call a modified noose, but I’m sure there is real name for it. 

My dad passed on a wealth of knowledge to me, such as don’t get any jailhouse tattoos and don’t steal anything that’s not worth going to prison for. I’m sensing a pattern here. He also taught me how to make a noose.  No context, just an out of the blue, come here kid and let me show you something father and daughter bonding moment. It's because of my warped childhood that I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know how to make a noose, so let me enlighten you if you don't already know. 

It’s really very easy and handy for decorating. No, not for Better Homes and Gardens, but definitely for stringing up a skeleton or two for Halloween. Never, never ever, ever ever, (Is that Taylor Swift singing in the background?), never, ever, never put a noose around any living creature. Not for just a second, not to be funny, not because your inner child wants to clean the gene pool. It’s not cool.

That being said, here’s a video that shows you just how easy it is. I’ve heard it’s illegal to make a noose, that a hangman’s noose has 13 coils, that 13 is the requisite number to make it big enough to snap a neck after a short drop with a sudden stop, and that the number of coils is why 13 has been deemed an unlucky number (Totally unfounded, nasty rumor, 13 is an awesome number once you get to know it. Now 4 on the other hand seems a little shifty. You don’t hear much about 4, kind of makes you wonder what it’s up too, right?). I have not seen anything factual to give credence to any of those statements, but I think thirteen loops looks good and for macabre decorating is definitely in the spirit of things.

This faux bullwhip is similar to the hangman's noose except just make one loop, wrap it, feed the end of the wrap through the loop and then pull the long end of the rope so the loop pulls tight. No, I don’t actually recommend using a fuchsia jump rope, but you get the idea.

Moving on, the witch's stringy hair is plastic Halloween garland. Her cape or shawl is made out of black pet screen. Pet screen also works for toddlers that like to press up against screen doors. 

Most of the other accessories are made out of craft foam sheets. Here are instructions to make an easy tutu like the ballerina has.  My favorite is the mummy and he's just wrapped in cheesecloth.  I think an army of mummy flamingos would look awesome.

The ghost was the one with the bum leg hole. After numerous fixes I gave up and he floated from a tree for a while and then he was abducted by aliens and this happened.

 

The alien flamingo's eyes are made out of the round plastic toy capsules that come out of quarter machines.  I boiled two halves in water until they were soft, and then wrapped a rubber band around the middle to squeeze them into an oblong shape. Careful they will be hot, so use tongs or thick gloves to hold onto it while wrapping.  Let them cool, and spray paint the inside black.  The edges will need to be trimmed for them to lay against the face.  Trim a little at a time until you get a good fit and then hot glue them on. 

His spaceship is nothing fancy. It's a circle of foam I had, with some cardboard, covered in tinfoil with clear marbles and battery operated micro mini lights glued along the outside edge, covered in plastic wrap for waterproofing. It looks pretty good for a 15 minute project with the lights twinkling and reflecting off the wrap, marbles and tinfoil.

Best part, nobody questions why he doesn't have any legs. 

By the way if you're thinking, "But wait tinfoil and aliens don't mix.", you should probably check out this site, the old tinfoil hat isn't nearly as effective as you may have been led to believe.

Next step is to make papier mache flamingo clones, then I can do all sorts of dastardly things to them.

This has nothing to do with Halloween, more to do with Home Owner Associations and is possibly the best lawn flamingo story ever written.  Most importantly it makes me chuckle, enjoy A Flock of Lawn Flamingos by Pat Murphy.

Papier Mache Binder II

For materials I used newspaper, tissue paper, paper clay, air dry clay, white glue, acrylic paints, an old pair of jeans and of course an old binder.

This project was just another excuse to play around with papier mache. I had a few ideas I wanted to try out and for the most part they worked.

For the deep gashes I use rolled tubes of newspaper. The tighter they are rolled the better. I glued three tubes side by side, the center one becoming the gash, the outer ones just for added support. Then I added some paper clay for more support and to even things outs.

Once that was all dry I slit the tubes down the center and softened the paper by brushing it with water. I separated the layers and pushed them around until they started to look fleshy. Then I did the same with a 50/50 mix of water and glue. After that dried it was ready for paint.

I distressed the jeans by rubbing them against the grip tape on my skateboard. I also used a sandpaper block for a little bit, but much preferred the larger surface of the skateboard. Then I washed and dried them with the laundry and dyed the pieces with watered down acrylics that looked like murky water. Later I would get crazy adding more eyeballs than I ever intended, which would then lead to a considerable amount of distressing  and the washing, drying and painting process would have to be repeated.

For the eyes I looked at a bunch of cataract pictures both animal and human for inspiration. What I came up with is definitely a very loose interpretation of the two.  

On the first few eyes, the ones closest to the outer edges of the binder, I used a thin layer of air dry clay over paper clay for the center of the eye. They ended up being very flat, still interesting looking, but not my favorite. I like the eyes in the middle of the binder more and for them I used only air dry clay. 

The rest of the technique applies to all the eyes.

After the air dry clay dried I gave them a clear coat of acrylic varnish. On top of that I painted a dark base coat for the iris and random splotches of red. On top of that I added layers of tissue paper. The only important detail is to coat each layer of tissue paper with clear varnish, this keeps it translucent when it dries. After that it was just playing around. You don’t have to completely cover the eye with tissue paper each time, varying layers just changes the depth of color in spots. When adding more color I used water down acrylics before the clear coat. After using the watercolor let it dry before adding a clear coat. It’s also fun to just apply a little color and let it wick through the wrinkles in the tissue. Play around with different shades and layers, there’s no wrong way to do it.

The flesh around the eyes is a combination of paper clay covered with strips of tissue paper.

I decided to give this binder a title so I went with POTIONS. I think I might turn it into a recipe book. Same thing right? I was going for a carved into flesh look. I glued down a bunch of layers of ripped newspaper just along the edges, so that when I cut into it, I could easily push paint and water into the edges of the cuts.

Do you ever really forget your first deep laceration? For me it happened when I was just a kid and although I knew in theory there was a fatty layer of tissue under the skin, it still came as a surprise the first time I saw it out there in the open. Protruding out of my wound, a thick yellow mass, it reminded me of dough bursting along the seams of one of those Pillsbury cans. I think what I ended up creating on my binder looks more like pus, but fatty tissue was my inspiration, and I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

I put a pocket on the inside, for pens, pencils or business cards.

All the bloody bits, pus and eyeballs are coated with a few coats of clear gloss to give it that wet look.

Like most of what I do, it’s a far cry from my original idea,
but half the fun is letting the materials push you in different directions.

Monster Flowers and Recycled Vases

 

My inspiration came from these Monster Mum Topiaries,

but I didn't like that they used Styrofoam balls.  

 

 I really hate buying Styrofoam, it makes me feel dirty, but not in a good way.

Yes, along the blurred edges of my morality, that’s where I choose to draw the line.

 

For my version you only need three flowers, something with a lot of little petals,

so it looks "furry", wire, floral tape, and two googly eyes.  

 

Clip two flowers leaving at least two inches of stem and tightly wire them to the third. 

Wrap the stems with floral tape to hide the wire.  Then glue on the googly eyes.

 

The vase is made from a Method laundry detergent bottle.

Unscrew the top and remove the red tube.  Pop off the top of the cap. 

Give the post sticking down from the cap ring a little snap and it will pop out.

 

Screw the ring back onto the bottle and paint. Find something creative to do with the spare parts. Coolest thing I’ve seen so far is gluing poker chips on the ends of the springs and then adding googly eyes to the poker chips for some crazy looking eye stalks. 

Igor and Frankie

Meet little Igor and his sister Frankie, the latest additions to our Smith family.

My daughter suggested that I make a little baby monster, so I did one better and made a big sister too. Igor actually made his first appearance on the sixth day of Creepmas. 

Igor’s older sister Frankie, was named after Dr. Frankenstein who created their parents. She has the same basic body as the mummy, but the paper roll is trimmed an inch shorter since she’s just started hitting her growth spurt. 

Her hair is made from one of my daughter’s old leg warmers, and bits of sweater. I didn’t like the way the ends of the leg warmer looked so I made a few cuts and unraveled the yarn until I got to the pretty cable knit. I folded and glued thin strips of the sweater into the grooves between the cable knit. The leg warmer wasn’t as stiff as the fake fur so I stuffed some paper towel into the center. I glued the curly unraveled bits that I had cut off around to make bangs and also on top to fill in the center and hide the paper towel.

Frankie just got her neck bolts this past month, which are covered in black glitter glue with rhinestones on the ends. All her friends have had theirs forever, retro bolts are so in right now, but her horribly old fashioned parents, who seem to have been created for the sole purpose of embarrassing her, made her wait until her 13th birthday.

She also has her mother’s fun fur eyelashes.


Igor was named after the obstetrician Igorina, who delivered him. Igorina’s are fabulous in the delivery room, it doesn’t matter if the baby is born with the prerequisite number of fingers and toes or not, she’s quite handy with spare parts, needle and thread. He’s a half size paper roll with a rounded paper towel ball top and bottom. I wanted him to be able to stand on his own without any feet, so I taped a decorative flat marble (pictured) to his bottom. Once I gave him hair, that wasn’t enough to keep him stable, but a bottle cap (not pictured) taped over the marble was and didn’t add a lot of bulk.

And here is the happy family altogether.

Peyote Santa Skull

One more Santa Skull for the last day of Creepmas. Skulls seem to be my thing lately. Instructions will be forthcoming shortly, but it starts out very similar to my peyote Cthulhu.

In fact, I can see in the future that I will have to merge the two and make a Santa Cthulhu.

 

I hope everyone had a very merry, very scary, maybe even slightly hairy Creepmas this year.

Update: Took a little longer than I had hoped, but I finally have some instructions done. One thing I forgot to mention, I like the black translucent beads because of the way the Christmas lights glow through.

As with my Cthulhu I’d like to thank Shala Kerrigan for providing free graphpaper and the people at Inkscape for providing an awesome free program which I used to make the beading diagrams.

Also this video by Leslie Rogalski on odd-count peyote is very helpful, as is the one she did on ending and starting new threads. 

I end and start my threads basically the same way, just not in the order they do. I don’t know if there is a politically correct term for when you cockblock yourself by having pulled a knot into a bead that you now need to pass through, but then I’ve never been accused of being politically correct, so why start. It’s more of a problem with teeny tiny seed beads, but I’ve done it to myself enough that no matter what the project I make as few knots as possible until I’m completely done. 

When starting or ending a thread I leave at least a three inch tail which is a lot more that what is actually needed, but easier to work with. When adding a new thread, to keep it from pulling through I just keep my thumb on the end until I’ve made enough stitches to keep the tension. After I’ve finished the project I weave in all the loose ends, then knot, then weave some more and finally snip off the excess. 

Conversely if I have enough thread left to go onto the next part of the project I will tie it off before continuing. For instance once I’ve finished to the top of the Santa hat, I’ll weave the thread away from the top, knot it and then weave back to where I want to add the loop for hanging. After adding the loop I’ll weave, knot and weave over towards the next component, which in this case is the extra loops on the hat tassel and trim. On the bottom of the skull I’ve weave, knot and weave again before adding the beard fringe. It’s probably overkill for an ornament that just has to hang there and look pretty but this way if one of the components does break I don’t have to worry about everything unravelling. I’m not saying any of this is the best way to do it, it’s just the way I like to do it.

Creepmas Dream Catcher

Today I made a dream catcher for a little Creepmas spider in need of a home.  I made it the same basic way as my Halloween dream catchers, except in a winter wonderland color scheme with glitter.

The clear faceted beads are just there to look pretty only the white beads have a large enough hole to accommodate the feathers.  To really make it Creepmas, I suggest using pony skull beads, but this one is for a friend, so I toned down the creep factor.  

I won't have time to make one with skulls until after Creepmas, but I think you get the idea.  I also think it would look really cool if the tips of the feathers and yarn hanging down were dipped in red dye.  




Update:  After I finished the dream catcher above, I decided it wasn’t finished and added some sparkly holiday floral accents.  I didn’t take a picture, so you’ll have to take my word for the fact that it still remained simple yet elegant. 

I can’t say the same for the one I made for myself.  It’s big and gaudy, but I love it.  I used some of the mini salt dough skulls to accessorize. If Liberace’s skull vomited winter merriment, I think it would look a little like this.