Most desserts look mouthwatering—but it might take some courage to bite into these eyeball-topped pies! Food artist Nikk Alcaraz is known for his creepy yet delicious creations, and these grisly masterpieces are no exception. Alcaraz designs foods that look like real body parts, bugs, and other unusual things.
When making his gruesome eye pies, Alcaraz first tried sculpting the eyes from apples. But he found that the fruit shriveled up too much during baking. So he turned to pears, which held their shape better when cooked. He then painted a blue iris—the colored part of the eye—on each pear using white chocolate dyed with food coloring. To mimic the glossy look of a real eyeball, he coated the pear with clear, edible gel. “Sheen is everything!” says Alcaraz. “The eyeball wouldn’t look half as realistic if it were dull.”
Alcaraz’s other treats include a monstrous cake with sharp almond-sliver fangs that looks like it might chomp the hand of anyone who tries to eat it. He’s also covered pears in green cotton candy to make them look moldy, and added almond paste shaped like maggots—or immature flies. Alcaraz created the maggots’ segmented, or divided, bodies by rolling almond paste across the teeth of a comb. While Alcaraz’s gory-looking baked goods may make some people cringe, that usually doesn’t stop them from trying the sweets. “I’ve learned that the people who squirm the most enjoy my food the most,” he says.