Tonight was the season finale of True Blood. Since it’s one of my favorite TV shows on the air right now (I’ve also read all the Sookie Stackhouse books out so far),  I decided to have a viewing party. I invited my friend Lil from lab and her boyfriend Ben, who’s also a big True Blood fan (Lil hasn’t watched many episodes but was a good sport while we all sat in rapt silence).

Although you can actually buy True Blood, I thought it’d be fun to come up with our own vampire-themed snacks. So, to go along with the red wine (the drink of Dionysus) and red summer sausage that Lil & Ben brought, I made red velvet cupcakes (southern *and* blood-colored!).  Because I didn’t want to use a lot of red food-coloring, I tried a version that calls for pureed beets instead. But the batter wasn’t really red after I added the cocoa, so I ended up adding a few drops of red food-coloring anyway, which also didn’t help. So they were basically chocolate-colored, but I think the “vampire bite marks” (red-hots) on the cream-cheese frosting made up for it

Here’s the cupcake recipe I used, which makes a chocolatey, moist cupcake, and here’s the cream cheese frosting. I’m already anxious for the premiere of the third season!