Month: October 2013

Halloween & Fall Ideas 2013

halloween2013

Here’s a collection of nearly all of the fall/Halloween recipes on my blog. Have a wonderful holiday :)

1. Pumpkin Cupcakes
2. Pumpkin Raisin Bread
3. Mummy Cupcakes
4. Halloween Brownies
5. Hoot Owl Cupcakes
6. Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies
7. Trick-or-Treat Rice Krispie Treats
8. Ghost Cake
9. Spider Cupcakes
10. Pumpkin Cupcakes II
11. Frankenstein Cupcakes
12. Candy Corn Cupcakes
13. Sparkling Candy Corn Cookies
14. Chocolate & Vanilla Halloween Cupcakes
15. Pumpkin Spiderweb Cookies
16. Halloween Puppy Chow
17. Candy Corn Surprise Cupcakes
18. Pumpkin M&M Cookies
19. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
20. Pumpkin Pi Cookies
21. Caramel Apple Cupcakes
22. Candy Corn Cupcakes
23. Skeleton Cookies
24. Frankencake
25. Day of the Dead Cookies
26. Ghost Cookies
27. Monster Cupcakes
28. Candy Corn Mummy Cookies

Skeleton Cookies

DSC_2584x900Here’s the counterpart to yesterday’s post! I love skeletons. I’ve always been fascinated by them – I think they are eerie and beautiful. These cookies are obviously a cartoon-ish version of a skeleton – and they weren’t that difficult to do. [And this is saying a lot coming form a girl that is not what you’d call fabulous in her piping skills!]

Skeleton Cookies
Print Recipe

For the cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with a skeleton cookie cutter (a gingerbread man cookie cutter will also do the trick!). Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Note: Feel free to use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I chose this one because it’s my favorite.

For the decorating:
You’ll need water, meringue powder, powdered sugar, and AmeriColor’s Super Black coloring. As well as a small round pastry tip and a plastic bottle for flooding. I outlined each skeleton with black icing. Once the outlines were set, I flooded each with black icing. Once the cookies had dried completely, I piped the “bones” onto each cookie. I don’t know how to go into detail on that — you’ll just have to follow along from what you can see on the photo. All it involves are simple lines and shapes. I placed candy eyes on each as well. If you don’t have candy eyes, you can just pipe black icing onto the cookies for eyes.

As always, I refer you to Annie’s post about decorating with royal icing. She’s got it down to a science and there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel here!

Ghost Cookies

DSC_2564x900BOO! Ghosts, of the Casper-the-friendly-ghost variety, are so cute and cuddly. These cookies involve royal icing, but were easier than usual because only one color of royal icing was needed! Saves a lot of time and energy only having to worry about making white icing. Anyway – here’s the scoop on how these were made.

Ghost Cookies
Print Recipe

For the cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with a ghost cookie cutter. Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Note: Feel free to use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I chose this one because it’s my favorite.

For the decorating:
You’ll need water, meringue powder, and powdered sugar. As well as a small round pastry tip and a plastic bottle for flooding. I outlined each cookie with white icing. Once the outline set up, I flooded the cookies with white icing. Place two candy eyes on top of each ghost and that’s it!

As always, I refer you to Annie’s post about decorating with royal icing. She’s got it down to a science and there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel here!

Candy Corn Mummy Cookies

DSC_2438x900I’ve been blogging for a long time and it’s easy to run out of ideas for the holidays. There are only so many variations of a candy corn cupcake or a spooky spider cookie, ya know? I thought I’d combine a few things for these cookies — making candy corn mummies!

Candy Corn Mummy Cookies
Recipe source: The Partiologist
Print Recipe

For the sugar cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with candy corn-shaped cookie cutter. Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes.

Note: You can use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I used this because it’s my favorite. But use whatever you prefer. The recipe above will make quite a few cookies — at least 3 dozen.

For the icing:
1 stick salted butter – room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter – room temperature
1 cup shortening
1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioner’s sugar
4-6 tablespoons very cold milk
Orange and yellow food coloring

1. Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer.
2. Add the clear vanilla extract and combine well.
3. Begin adding in the sugar and mixing thoroughly after each addition.
4. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, begin adding the very cold milk… one tablespoon at a time, combining very well after each addition (mixer on medium-high to high speed) until you reach the desired consistency.
5. Divide into three bowls. Keep one bowl white, dye the other two orange and yellow.
— Recipe from therepressedpastrychef.blogspot.com

Assembly:
Using a flat piping tip (Wilton #47 works well), pipe yellow, orange, and white icing onto the cookies in mummy-like fashion. No need to be perfect with this — because every mummy looks a little messy, right?! Place two candy eyes onto each cookie. If you don’t have candy eyes, you can pipe eyes with icing (provided you have some black food coloring).

Candy Corn Surprise Cupcakes

DSC_1787x900I am a big, big believer in showing failures as well as successes. Well here’s a failure for you. Kind of. I wanted to make these beautiful cupcakes. I followed directions, cut into them, and, well, they just didn’t look great. *sad trombone* The inside of the cupcake looked more like a yellow, orange, and white blob than a piece of candy corn. So rather than write out directions, if you want to try these (and you’ll likely have more luck than me!), visit the Sugar Turntable!