Happy Halloween!

I have been keeping busy in the kitchen this Halloween (and around the house - I finally have a yard to decorate!).

First up were my Tiger Tiger cupcakes - based of the classic ice cream flavour! They were a big hit (as long as you liked black licorice flavour).


To make them a little more in the spirit of things, I added little white chocolate skulls (made using a candy mold).



Then I had these cute cupcake holders around, and couldn't resist making some cupcake skulls with brains! I have a new favorite strawberry frosting recipe now as well, yum!



I also made some tombstones for front yard and carved a pumpkin:





And lastly here is a sneak peak for the Halloween graveyard cakes!


I had fun playing with the gumpaste for this cake - pictures to come tomorrow (trying to keep it a surprise for the folks at work!

Mars Bar Brownies

I admit it, my favorite part of Halloween is the cheap minature candy for the days after Oct. 31. This year I hit the stores and came home with a large box of mini mars bars. Why didn’t I get a box that had a few kinds in it? I don’t really know, but that large box of mars bars called to me, it wanted me to bring it home.

So now, rather than just chew my way through the box of 70 chocolate bars in the weekend, I decided maybe I should try and do something with them. The natural and most obvious choice was Brownies.

Mars Bar Brownies:

Ingredients:
½ cup margerine (1 square)
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
½ cup all purpose flour
about 12 mini mars bars

How to:
1. In a saucepan melt the margerine., remove from heat.
2. Add the brown sugar and stir until smooth. Check to make sure that the mixture is now cool enough that it won’t cook the egg, if it is too warm let it sit for a minute.
3. Add in the egg and vanilla, mixing until smooth.
4. Add the flour and cocoa powder, mixing until just mixed.
5. At this point you could cut up the mars bars and add them in, but I decided to go a more interesting route. I poured just enough batter to cover the bottom of my 8x8 pan, then set the bard in lines in my pan.

I then marked the edges of the bars, and covered them with the remaining batter.


6. Bake at 350F for 20 mintues, they will still be very gooey when removed from the oven, don’t worry about it. Let cool in the pan for 5 -8 mintues them remove to a wire rack (I like the parchment paper for this as you can just grab the sides and pick the brownies out of the pan.).
7. Once the brownies are cool, but at the marked lines. Hopefully the bars didn’t shift and the brownies will look like a fudgy brownie along the cut lines. Then when you bite into the middle, you get a caramel and nugout surprise!

Reviews:
I love these brownies, I hate easily ½ the pan of these in a single sitting. I could not stop myself from picking up a new one everytime I went near the kitchen. O said they were allright, but a little too rich for him as he wasn’t able to sit down and eat a bunch of them all at once.

Halloween 09

Well, Halloween has over for another year, all that is left is some finger cookies and the disassembled pieces of our costumes. I let Owen pick the costumes this year, and he decided to go with a couples costume. He found a picture and we got to work making them. It only took 1 black sheet, 1 pillow case, a cardboard box, shelf paper, duct tape and some iron on hemming.


The costume was a hit at the party we went through, and it was one of my favorite costumes to wear of all time! It was so very comfortable!

I did end up doing doing a small pumpkin for my apartment in my window, and the kids playing on the lawn loved it! They were all coming up to the window to check it out. I did this one freehand, so it isn't as fancy as the dog I did at my parent's.

In the window:


Up Close:


Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Peanut Butter Fingers

I love cookies that look like fingers for halloween, however O isn't a big fan of vanilla cookies. I decided to try them with peanut butter cookies instead, with the added bonus that pb cookies are close the skin colored if you use the right recipe.

The first time I tried, I used the same recipe as the Jack-o-lanterns. They looked fantastic before they went in the oven, but when they game out, the had flattened and ruined my pretty fingers.

I went searching and found a recipe for this purpose, Count Dracula Fingers! As I already had 3 batches of cookies in the house, and I didn't know if it would work I did a smaller batch and ended up with about 20 cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon(s) baking powder
1/6 teaspoon(s) baking soda
dash salt
1/4 cup(s) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup(s) creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup(s) + 2 tbsp confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract
Egg white from 1 large egg, for brushing
Whole Almonds

Directions:
1. Cream together the butter and peanut butter. Once it is smooth and the sugar, vanilla and the egg, beating until well mixed.
2. In another bowl mix together the dry ingredients and slowly add to the butter and sugar mixture until well mixed.
3. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Take 1 tbsp of dough and roll into a 5 inch rope. Place on the cookie sheet and press an almond on the end for the nail. Using a knife press lines for the knuckles. Repeat until the cookie sheet is full. Brush the cookies with the egg white.
5. Bake at 325F for 18 minutes, let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes.
Enjoy.

Reviews:
This cookie recipe isn't as tasty as the jack-o-lantern recipe (there isn't as much peanut butter in it), however the cookies look good and creepy! I love the way they turned out. The only caution is that the nails tend to fall off if they are jolted to hard, so I am planning on "glueing' them with a little icing or melted chocolate.

This is what happens if you use the jack-o-lantern recipe to make the fingers:

Peanut Butter Jack-o-lanterns

I am in the halloween cookie spirit these days and wanted to try some other cookies, as I had so much fun with the spider web cookies. I wanted some quick cookies, and a friend suggested that I do peanut butter cookies. Peanut butter cookies are a huge hit in out house, so I thought this was a great idea. I grabbed a quick peanut butter cookie recipe that had a decent amount of peanut butter and got cooking.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Cream together the butter and sugars. Then add the peanut butter and egg and beat until well mixed.
2. In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar until it is just mixed.
3. Wrap the dough in saran wrap/cling wrap and place in the fridge for three hours.
4. Heat the oven to 375F, and make 1 tbsp balls on the cookie sheet. Flatten the balls with your fingers or the back of a spoon so they are smooth and cook the cookies for 8-9 minutes.
5. Cool the cookies on a rack. Once they are cool melt the semisweet chocolate chips, and put them in a plastic ziploc. Remove a small corner of the bag and pipe the melted chocolate onto the cookies to make faces.

Reviews:
This is a yummy recipe for pb cookies, and have been a big hit with everyone who has tried them. My students and coworkers loved the faces on the cookies, and mix of peanut butter and chocolate is great - who would have guessed??

Halloween Spider Webs

I saw these adorable cookies on Good Things Catered, and had to try them! I followed her recipe and directions and came out with some impressive cookies, I almost don't want to eat them. They are a tasty cookie, but not my or Owen's favorite.

These have been a big hit with coworkers and students.

Pumpkin Carving

On our way home for thanksgiving, my brother and I made a pit stop at the grocery store and picked up a pumpkin. We hadn't carved a pumpkin together in years and thought it would be fun. I know it is a little early, but as we were at home together finally, it was really the last chance we would get to do it together before halloween. Who cares if my parents will have to another one before the holiday.

My little bro picked out the pattern (fitting for my parent's place as they raise dogs) and we got to work. It was so much fun, I hadn't carved a pumpkin in years. The true beauty is when the lights are out and the pumpkin has a flickering candle in it.


I love how it turned out! I am tempted to go and get some to try for my apartment, I could just set them outside my window right?