Celebrate #Alienday with a Xenomorph Egg Cupcake ⋆ Welcome to the Necro Nomnomnomicon

It’s no secret as to how much I really, really like the Alien movie franchise. So far here on the Nom, we’ve made Fizzing Alien Facehugger Pudding cups, the Chestburster Thanksgiving Turkey, and of course, the Roasted Facehugger Feast… So when I was approached by the amazing team over at 20^th Century Fox and asked if I had anything coming up for #Alienday, the answer was “Of course!”

Spring is always good for those of us that love Aliens for the simple fact that post-Easter means killer deals on tons of egg-shaped molds. Case in point: this large chocolate mold I picked up for 50% off the week after Easter.

Sure, it might look like a simple run-of-the-mill candy mold for chocolate, but with a little magic and a special Nom twist, I knew I was going to turn this innocuous looking egg mold into an oozing, decadent, photorealistic chocolate and marshmallow homage to our favorite Facehugger Xenomorph Ovomorphs.

Ooh…

For this recipe you will need:

1 cup dark chocolate chips, roughly chopped
¾ cup heavy cream, divided
1 cup chocolate cake, crumbled
½ cup cocoa candy melts or light brown milk chocolate
1 cup black candy melts
½ red candy melt
5 white candy melts
2 cups bright green candy melts
7 oz marshmallow cream
3 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened + 1 teaspoon, softened
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Green food coloring
Coconut oil
Corn syrup

(And because this recipe contains a link to purchase your own egg mold I’ll be up-front and let you know that the link is an affiliate link. Please, feel free to check out my full advertising disclosure here.)

The first thing we need to do is make some dark chocolate ganache. In a pot over low/medium-low heat, bring ¼ cup of your heavy cream up to just under a simmer. You want the cream to be warm, but not hot. When it starts to steam, you’ll know it’s hot enough.

Remove from the heat and immediately pour over your 1 cup of chopped dark chocolate chips and allow to sit for approximately 5 minutes. As the chips sit in the warm cream they’ll melt. Stir to combine. You should end up with a thick, rich chocolate paste. If it’s not thick enough, add in more chopped chocolate.

Once you’re happy with the consistency, add to your crumbled chocolate cake, a quarter cup at a time, until your cake has enough chocolate ganache in it to hold together when squeezed lightly. You should only need about ¼ of a cup. Save the rest of the ganache for use as ice cream topping, a dip for fresh fruit, or just do what I do and scoop up a spoonful now and then and eat it just like it is. Mmmm…delicious!

Set your cake/ganache mixture aside and let’s start making our ovomorph. Go grab your egg mold and black candy melts.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt your black candy melts by zapping for 20 seconds at a time and stirring. You want the candy melts to be completely melted and smooth.

Once they’re liquid smooth, pour them into both halves of your egg mold and tilt to coat. Use a spatula if you need to help make sure that you get an even layer of chocolate over the entire interior shape of your egg mold.

Pour out the excess chocolate and turn your mold upside down over a piece of waxed paper to drain for 5 minutes.

Once it’s drained, turn right side up and pop into the freezer for 10-20 minutes to firm up.

Repeat these steps to apply a second coat to your egg mold. Ideally, you want a chocolate shell to your egg that is firm enough to hold up to the abuse we’re going to inflict upon it in a bit, but not too thick. Two coats should do it.

Once you have your two coats of chocolate in your egg mold, gently fill the bottom half of both sides with your cake/ganache mixture. Leave the top half of your egg molds empty as we’ll fill that in a bit.

I also like to push a small dent into the cake vertically from the top to the bottom to create a channel. You’ll see why in a bit.

Pop the whole thing onto the freezer for another 20 minutes to firm up the ganache cake in prep for the next step.

Now let’s make our green marshmallow alien ooze.

Sprinkle your unflavored gelatin over your 3 tablespoons of cold water and allow to bloom for 5 minutes. Once bloomed, mix well and microwave until the gelatin is melted.

Stir in your 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter, salt and vanilla to your hot gelatin water and mix to melt. Allow to cool for 5 minutes and then whisk in your marshmallow cream until smooth. Finally, add in enough green food coloring to achieve the toxic, alien acid color we all know and love (if your green is too, well…green, a few drops of yellow can help balance it out.)

Transfer this mixture to a piping bag and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once your marshmallow cream has completely cooled, pipe it into either side of your chocolate egg molds, filling up the empty spaces over where we packed in the cake earlier. Now is also the time to use the marshmallow cream to fill in the vertical dent I had us add to the cake layer. This will help to hold the two sides together as well as give our cake a core of ooey gooey marshmallow awesomeness.

And…back into the deep freeze for another 20 minutes to firm up the marshmallow cream (you don’t want it slopping all over in the next step.)

Now that the marshmallow cream is firm, lets assemble this baby!

Using a bit of your leftover black candy melt, close up the two sides of your chocolate egg, sealing the cake and marshmallow goodness inside. Don’t worry if your seams are rough, we’re gonna make them even rougher.

Dip a spatula into even more of your melted black candy melts and use the flat broad side to lightly smack the outside of your entire egg (and I mean this literally…LIGHTLY smack your egg. Too hard and you’ll end up cracking the shell.)

You want to create a gloppy, almost avocado looking texture on the surface of your egg. By smacking your egg with the melted chocolate, you should end up with a rough, raised surface. Continue doing this over the entire surface of your egg.

Now let’s add some dimension to the egg. Melt your light cocoa candy melts and use a food safe paintbrush to just barely brush this over the roughened surface of your egg. Don’t press too hard, you’re not painting the egg, just highlighting the high points of the rough surface.

To create the four petals at the top of our egg, heat the edge of a sharp knife over an open flame (gas burner or candle works equally well) and use that to score the top of your egg in an “X” pattern. Make sure you’re going all the way through the chocolate (you should see a bit of the green from your marshmallow cream through the top of the X).

Use more of your black candy melt to go around the edge of each petal, creating a thicker edge.

To give it the pinker “fleshy” look that is consistent with the film, melt your 5 white candy melts and ½ of your red candy melt and mix to create a pink tone. Use this to go over the top of your thicker black candy melt petal layer.

To create the wet “glistening” look, coat the edges of your petals with light corn syrup and allow to dry for roughly 6 hours.

You can also brush the entire exterior of your egg with a thin, light coating of melted coconut oil.

Congratulations, your chocolate and marshmallow ovomorph is done!

(ps…want to make those black edible rocks our ovomorph is sitting on? Swing by our Krampus Coal recipe and whip up a batch to help perfectly showcase your incredible finished ovomorph!)

Of course, you can eat your finished ovomorph like it is right now…or you can take it one step further and make it EPIC with the addition of some battery acid green ganache and oozing marshmallow action.

Uh…hell yes!

Heat up your remaining 1/2 cup heavy cream until just steaming and then pour over your 2 cups of green candy melts and the remaining teaspoon of butter and stir to melt.

Add in a few drops of green food coloring and adjust until you’re happy with the acid look of your ganache.

While still hot, slowly pour this mixture over the top of your ovomorph cupcake.

As the hot ganache hits the chocolate petals, they’ll melt and expose the green marshmallow cream inside.

This will bubble up and over the edges of the egg, revealing the chocolate cake and ganache center. The entire thing is decadent, rich, and probably as dangerous for your waistline as a real facehugger is to your face.

They say in space nobody can hear you scream…luckily, I think that also means nobody can hear you pigging out and grubbing down on this deliciousness…and if they can, well then, hand them a spoon and tell them to dig in with you.