Food artist Nikk Alcaraz knows a thing or two about show-stopping, spooky pastries. In his upcoming cookbook, Peculiar Baking: A Practical Guide to Strange Confections, he lays out in great detail how to make gorgeous and gruesome desserts. These range from cakes bristling with fangs to peach-oatmeal cookies decorated with realistic chocolate mealworms. Yet there are also recipes for shortbread decorated with an elegant arrangement of herbs, and vibrantly red miniature pies decorated to look like ladybugs. “People would expect this book to be a Halloween book,” Alcaraz says, “but…
