Halloween 7: Pumpkin spice cupcakes and a Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I didn't celebrate with a costume or anything this year, but I have been watching Halloween-y movies this year. Friday night I was introduced me to John Carpenter's "The Thing," which is truly gross. Reminded me of high school, when one of me and my friends' favorite movies to watch was John Carpenter's "Vampires." Then Saturday night was "Young Frankenstein." 

"Werewolf." "There." "What?" "There, wolf. There, castle." Gosh I love that movie. My dad introduced it to me as a kid. Last night I watched "Space Jam." I think it counts as a Halloween movie because it's got aliens, right? I'm going with that. I don't know what I'll watch tonight, but these cupcakes would go perfectly with it, especially with their black cat sprinkles!

For my final Halloween dessert, I went to Martha, and she came through. I made pumpkin spice cupcakes with a pumpkin spice icing. The cupcakes were nice and moist, and although this isn't the exact recipe I used from her cupcake cookbook, it will probably do. I know the one I used didn't use melted butter. The frosting is her swiss meringue buttercream recipe with some pumpkin pie spices mixed in, and it was awesome. I believe the term that was used was "cloud in my mouth." And naturally, I had to make black cat-themed cupcakes just like last year, when I made some with black cat toppers. This year, I went with sprinkles.

Now, for my favorite costume picture. This was when my whole family went as the Wizard of Oz, obviously. I was originally going to be the Scarecrow, but once I saw the Dorothy costume, I had to be her. Our dog, Nellie, was the Cowardly Lion, as evidenced by her fur collar. And my dad's costume? Yes, he made that out of ductwork. It was way cool. And it's a very special picture for me for another reason: It was the last Halloween my parents were still together, so the last time we went out as a family. So that's kind of cool.

Now here's a quick roundup of the other Halloween treats I made for the holiday.

1. Halloween Oreo cheesecakes

2. Fall Brenna brownies

3. Pumpkin chocolate tart

4. Candy corn cupcakes

5. Spooky Rice Krispies

6. Pumpkin spice cookies

(Posting cupcakes in Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)

Halloween 6: Pumpkin spice cookies

Sometimes, I forget I have a cookie press. But it seems so perfect to use for the holidays, starting with Halloween. I mean, who can resist these pumpkin cookies? I made them once last year, but I like them a lot better in orange. Especially with these fall sprinkles. 

I just used a basic spritz cookie recipe that came with the press, which is pretty simple and makes a gazillion cookies. I added orange gel coloring and some pumpkin pie spice, which gave these nice undertones of fall flavors but didn't overwhelm. Plus, they're basically two-bite cookies, so a perfect size.

Today's costume is another dance one from my last year at All That Jazz. Obviously, we did the can can, and it was for troupe, our competitive dance team. This was a picture my mom forced me to take in the driveway.

This is us actually doing the dance, I think at our dance recital in May. This would have made a pretty sweet costume, though. I know I still have the skirt somewhere!

Halloween 3: Pumpkin chocolate tart

I'll admit it: I hate pumpkin. Or at least, I have for a long time. I think it has something to do with handing out slice after slice of it at our church's Thanksgiving dinner. That, and the texture grosses me out. So why I decided to make this chocolate pumpkin tart, I don't know.

Maybe because it's pretty. And had a Halloween-y spiderweb. And wasn't that much pumpkin related to the crust and chocolate. That last part was probably it. Plus, does Martha Stewart ever screw up with her recipes? Actually, this crust was really finicky and super sticky. So maybe every once in a while she does.

You know what doesn't screw up? A Disney princess Halloween costume. So a couple days ago you saw Jasmine from Aladdin and this one is Esmerelda from Hunchback of Notre Dame (here's what she looks like in the movie). What's funny is that movie has had very little staying power in the grand scheme of Disney movies, but at the time I obviously loved it. I remember even having an Esmerelda Barbie (oh yes, I was totally a Barbie girl). 

Despite my aversion to pumpkin, I actually enjoyed this tart. Maybe I'm getting over my hatred of it! That, or the recipe just used the right amount of it in relation to the rest. We'll see if I make any more pumpkin recipes! I better, I bought another can of it.

Post-sickness baking

So the last few posts have talked about how I've been sick. Well, it's been a month now. On Monday it started getting tough to breathe, so I decided to go to the doctor. I had to wear one of those masks (like when you get SARS) in the health center. I felt pretty stupid. Anyway, they told me I had an upper respiratory infection. After 2 1/2 days in bed, antibiotics, an inhaler, Mucinex, snuggling with the kitty and a whole lot of Kleenexes, I felt better on Friday. Not exactly the best time to be sick, but what can I do. And, it's senior year, so I'm considerably less concerned about grades. Probably the wrong attitude. Oh well.

So Friday I started to bake. A lot. I had a few days to make up, after all, so I started making some favorites. Lemon bars (for Drew and Co.), pumpkin bread (for Stephen and Co.) and pizzelles. I had press club later, and then people came over for games, so I had enough people over that I could bake that much. We played Catchphrase for three hours. You could tell we were playing with journalism kids. For "Who's who": "Blank blank at KU!" and another, describing one that was a gerund. It was super fun though.

The lemon bars are the old faithful recipe from Martha Stewart that is just perfect, but how it works hardly makes sense. The crust is really strange, as in, you grate butter into your dry ingredients, push it into a pan, freeze it and then bake it. They sure end up yummy, though. The crust is half the bar, but it doesn't taste that way. This is easily one of my favorite things to make.

Then there's the pumpkin bread, a two-loaf recipe. I found the recipe on foodnetwork.com, and it ends up tasting great, but there's one huge problem. The recipe says bake it for 30 to 40 minutes, and it definitely takes 50 minutes to an hour. Can't these people count? The pumpkin loaves made an exit when Stephen returned after Catchphrase with three hungry lacrosse friends. Neither Drew nor I like pumpkin bread, but everyone else seems to, so Stephen took the loaves.

The last recipe is of pizzelles (see the Wikipedia article). They're Italian cookies that almost taste like a waffle cone and are super thin with designs on them. You have to have a special iron (like a waffle iron) to make them, which I have. These have kind of a family history with me. My not-really-grandma Mildred, who is my aunt-through-marriage's mother, makes them every Christmas and sends them to my grandma in an old ice cream container. I steal a few each time, and finally I just asked my aunt for the recipe. It's incredibly simple and only has six ingredients: margarine, eggs (a whole bunch of them!), sugar, flour, baking powder and flavoring. I usually make vanilla, but Mildred makes anise-flavored. The annoying part about these cookies is they make forever to make. The iron only has a spot for two cookies at a time, and it's a pretty huge recipe.

The cookies were a hit though, and I'm thinking of making lemon-flavored ones for the first time tonight. It's strange; I had two papers due Friday and now have almost nothing till finals. It's winding down and I'm finding I have free time. It's definitely a foreign feeling. So last night I watched a musical last night I'd never seen: Meet Me in St. Louis. I absolutely LOVE musicals. My mom is an organist/choir director/carillonneur, and my dad played in KU's marching band, so music is pretty much how I grew up. Music Man, Sound of Music, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, etc. Meet Me in St. Louis was a Judy Garland one, and I'd forgotten how unbelievable her voice was. A good movie all around. My other new discovery: the Boomerang channel and Cartoon Network. They play the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Cartoon Network is bringing back Looney Tunes. I'm DVR-ing it.

Anyway, we'll see how much I decide to bake this week. I think it will be a fair amount, because I have a lot of free time at night this week. Another consideration of something to make: oatmeal cream cheese butterscotch bars.