Halloween 2014

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post? Is it really November already?? Where has this past year gone! I figured that I would recap all of our fun Halloween events in just one quick post.



While visiting Grandma and Grandpa's house one weekend with cousins, the kids were all allowed to head out to the garden and pick a pumpkin. My two were even allowed to use a drywall saw to cut the vine on their own. They all had fun searching for the perfect pumpkin.

We co-hosted/attending a Trunk or Treat with some of our oldest local friends (and some new ones as well). We have been doing this since 2009 with a handful of the same families and it is so much fun to look back over the pictures and see how they have all grown.

I finally got a madeleine pan and the first ones I needed to make were these candy corn cookies!

I taught L's class on how to draw 3-d pumpkins using chalk pastels, and discussing shadow, lines, shape, and color.

We went to Frightful Fridays at a local library. The kids had off that day due to Fall Break, so we put on our costumes and headed in for games, crafts, and trick or treating to some local businesses tables set up.

We had a fun Halloween party with Cub Scouts! Each den made a game to play, we did Frankensteins head filled with brains, eyes, and spiders in his mouth. I also made these brain cupcakes with blood filling. Most boys were too grossed out to try one, and I must say that shocked me.

I went out of town for the day and Adam took the kids to carve pumpkins at a local place downtown. They then got to head back after dark to see all the pumpkins lit up along the street and bring their own pumpkins home. We also carved the pumpkins we picked from Grandpa's garden. Those were tough little pumpkins and I thought for sure I was going to walk away with a knife in my hand. Thankfully they were finished without incident.

Halloween night brought with it high winds, a severe drop in temps to the 30's, and rain/snow during trick or treat hours. We still braved it, but only hit up about half the houses we normally visit. D was of course the first one to get cold and complain (even though I told her to wear warm items under her costume and only be told that she was fine).

And last but not least friends of ours had a Halloween/Housewarming party the day after Halloween. The kids were excited to go to a "grown up" party, and that most people understood their costumes. (L was Han Solo, and D was Black Widow) (also see: Chicago Comic Con) The kids did an amazing job of being well behaved, and carrying on conversations with a bunch of people they had just met. At one point they were in charge of getting everyone's vote for the costume contest. There were a few different categories, each one making their own, and they then asked each person for their vote. They took this as serious work.

They then had fun announcing the winners! (They won one of the prizes)

Baked goodies!

I have been a busy bee over here baking now that the weather has cooled off.  I don't have a/c and it just gets WAY too hot in the house during the summer.  So now I'm on like overload.  There are just way too many things that I want to bake.  I did have a few orders that I included here for you.  I also made some pumpkin whoopie pies, but can't seem to find the picture.  Those I got from a great little blog I found called  Bake at 350!  I used her recipe for the cookies, and then the America's Test Kitchen recipe for the cream.

A first birthday giant and smash cupcake set.

 We did a clock play date and I made these for a healthy snack.  It's a whole grain English muffin, lowfat cream cheese, pretzels, and raisins. 

 I had some leftover cupcakes, so I decorated them for just the 4 of us.  That is leftover icing, and Necco waffers.

A pool set for my mom's husband for his birthday.  I found this in the book, Hello Cupcake!

Some snickerdoodle cupcakes for my brother's birthday.  These are from good old Martha!

And this was an order for a 4 year old's 50's themed party.  The picture was taken before I pulled the parchment out from under it.  I think it turned out pretty fun.  Got the idea from here.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

This idea started because one day while running to the store for a few items, in the clerance section of the produce section (yes, I know how strange that sounds), I came across a giant bag of limes marked down to $1.  Normally these bad boys are like 2/$1, so I was pretty excited about it.  I didn't know what to do with them right away.  I was mulling over some ideas, when another day at the store there was a sale on fresh whole coconuts.  Knowing that my family never shies away from new fruits to try, I took one home.  Needless to say, no one likes raw coconut.  But Adam pulled the flesh out of the shell, grated it, and toasted it.  Now we are talking.  The lightbulb went off!  Aha, we have that giant bag of limes in there and a large bag of toasted coconut.  I should make cupcakes.  Now after doing a google search for such a recipe, I didn't really find just one that spoke to me.  So I combined 2!

I got the cupcake recipe here at In my tiny kitchen: (and yes, I'm just cutting and pasting)

 2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
zest and juice from 1 lime (I think I put in 2)
1/2 cup plain yogurt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffins pans with liners.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a clean bowl.
3. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy - about 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Beat thoroughly in between.
4. Mix lime zest and juice into yogurt. Alternately stir in flour mixture and yogurt into the batter into 3 batches. Stir until well combined.
5. Drop into the prepared pan by tablespoon. Be careful not to fill more than half. The cake will rise a lot. Bake for 18 minutes. Rotate the pan half way through the baking time

     6.   Let cool in the pan for a minute then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Now the frosting I got from this blog, Eggshell Green:

• 3 Tbsp.  softened butter
• dash of vanilla extract
• Half jar of Marshmallow Fluff
• powdered sugar

To make frosting, whip the butter until light and fluffy using an electric beater. Add vanilla extract and Marshmallow Fluff and whisk well. Add about 1/4 cup sugar, and whisk again until well combined. Keep whisking in small amounts of sugar until you get a good fluffy frosting.


They turned out great.  I sent them to work with Adam, and heard back a lot of great feedback.  Everyone liked that they were nice and full of lime flavor, but not over the top with the coconut flavor.  I think these were a hit!

Cupcake of the Month!- Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Alright here is the first installment of the Cupcake of the month series! This recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. My mom's group this month did a boys lunch out, so while the boys were out to lunch, D and I made cupcakes. Boy it is sooooo much easier to bake with the kids when there is just one of them. We had a great time! We made the chocolate chip cupcakes with white butter frosting. The only problem was that we didn't have enough cake flour, and we had to combine regular chocolate chips with butterscotch chips to make the right amount. No worries on either count! I pulled out my America's Test Kitchen baking book for a quick cut on how to "make" cake flour. If you are out, and the recipe calls for it, then you can use: for 1 cup of cake flour - 7/8 cup all-purpose flour with 2 tbsp. cornstarch. It works!

The peanut practicing scooping the batter into the cups.

Watching the egg whites get whipped into place.

Helping to stir in the chocolate chips.

The finished product! Yummy!!!

Okay, and now for the recipes:


Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
3 1/4 cups plus 1 tbsp. cake flour (not self-rising)
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. milk
1/2 cup plus 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temp
1 3/4 cups sugar
5 large egg whites, room temp.
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tin with paper liners. Whisk together 3 1/4 cups cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir the vanilla into the milk to combine.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter until smooth. Adding the sugar in a steady stream, beat until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with 2 additions of milk mixture, and beating until just combined after each.
3. In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form (do not over mix). Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten. Gently fold in the remaining whites until just combined. Toss chocolate chips with remaining tbsp. cake flour, and gently fold into batter.
4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean and the tops are springy to the touch, about 22 min. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temp. or frozen up to 2 months in airtight container.
5. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temp. and if desired, decorate with sprinkles before serving.


Fluffy Vanilla Frosting:
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temp.
1 pound (4 cups) confectioner's sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract


1. With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 min.
2. Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioner's sugar, 1/2 cups at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to areate frosting, then return to medium. This process should take about 5 min. Frosting will be very pale, and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in a airtight container. Before using, bring to room temp, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 min.

Halloween Goodies

This last week has been jam packed with Halloween festivities for the kids. It started with a mom's group Halloween party on Saturday. I made cupcakes. Half were decorated as pumpkins and the other half as bats. I had gotten the idea from this book, and tried my hardest to make them look like the ones in there. I got close, not exactly the same, but I think close. The bat wings were a bit too large and heavy, they pulled the tops off the cupcakes. But you live and learn right? Then Monday we had spooky cupcake decorating with the kids. Basically it was a mess of frosting, candy, and sanding sugar, but the kids had a blast! Then today I hosted a candy corn day at the library. I made triangle sugar cookies, and topped them with royal icing. I was going to use the candy corn cookies as my cookie of the week, but have something else up my sleeve. I was very happy with how they all turned out and will give you the recipe for the cookies and royal icing that I made.

Candy Corn cookies

The bats before the wings

Pumpkins (Tootsie Rolls used as the stem)

Bat with wings (the wings were melted candy melts)

Cut out sugar cookies:


12 tbsp. ( 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg yolk
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350. Using mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Scrape bowl as needed. Add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in egg yolk, and vanilla, and then flour and salt. Scrape dough onto a piece of wax paper, pat into a disc, and cover with another piece of wax. Roll out dough to 1/4" thick. Cut out with cookie cutters, and then place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown on the bottom and light golden on edges. (about 15 min) Let cool 5 min, and then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.


Royal Icing:
(combined from the joyofbaking.com and Alton Brown recipes)

2 large egg whites

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

3 cups (330 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

1 tsp. vanilla extract

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use. I put them in plastic baggies and piped it onto the cookie.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today's post is brought to you by the color green today!

We had a play date this morning. We snacked on Lucky Charms, green water, and green jello. The kids had a blast! I also had shamrocks for the kids to color. They did a pretty good job. Most of them knew they needed to color them green without any prompting.

While the kids napped I whipped up some green cupcakes and white frosting. They look so yummy! I can't wait until after dinner to have another one. And yes I am making a corned beef and some cabbage. I may also make some mashed potatoes so the kids will eat something. The hubby is stopping off to buy a few bottles of beer for us to dye green to go along with dinner. I love celebrating all the holidays, can you tell?

L after discovering the marshmallows in Lucky Charms

The green cupcakes and green water

I know the shamrocks look a little silly!

Look how fun!