Halloween 2010

Brains, witch broom cookies, chocolate spiders, and Halloween Pie!


This is my Halloween Decorations Table -- Jack, Creepy Tree, Eyeball, Coffin, and Fuzzy Bat get to enjoy the living room once a year.




All of these pictures are out of focus because I accidentally had the camera set on macro the entire weekend. Why I didn't think to check the setting after having significant trouble getting it to auto-focus, I don't know.



While shopping for something entirely different, I bought a brain mould. The first brain I made was marshmallow -- definitely the sturdier of the two. The second, gelatin like the mould's box suggested. In a regular climate, the gelatin brain would have survived longer. Both brains looked gross and awesome!



Halloween Pie was an orange-dyed milktart with a variety of candy and chocolate shapes. I bought a LOT of chocolate and candy moulds for Halloween, and only got to use a few. I did discover semi-sweet chocolate does not set the same way as candy melts or white chocolate, and cracked a mould getting one dark skull out.



Chocolate spiders started vanishing quickly:



I also tried to make bones out of meringue. As with all of my previous meringue experiments, they pretty much failed. The brain-bite cupcakes were a decent success, I think. I made half of them dirty pink and the other half greenish for zombie brains.



The bones didn't look too bad stacked up in a pile, but they were very difficult to pull off the parchment paper and most were gooey, not stiff. On the bottom right, the corner of the pretzels that became witch broom cookies. On the top left, brain mould box.



I also made pumpkin chili, which was delicious!



Happy Hauntings!
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Independence Day Treats

Happy 4th of July!

The above picture is fondant-covered brownie (all 9 x 13 of it). I made spice brownies by putting a couple pinches of cayenne pepper powder into a batch of dark chocolate brownies. The fondant is leftover from a friend of mine's cupcake-making extravaganza. I have a tile counter top and no rolling pin, so I forwent making cool cut-out shapes. Instead, I used the fondant like stretchy clay, dying clumps at a time, elongating them, and flattening them in my hands until I had what looked like an American flag. No stars on this one, but the colors exist. I have discovered that lining the glass pan with aluminum foil makes the brownies easier to lift out. It also reduces cook time, or temperature, or both.

For the most part, people took the fondant off and piled it in a corner of the aluminum foil. Good to know.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes!

These gloriously fuzzy photos were taken with my cell phone camera. Not too bad. The cupcakes are Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, linked to me by another culinary friend. The recipe can be found here: Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes. The photos on the original site are much better, but here are mine anyway.

Cupcakes:


The Belgian dark chocolate I used to make the ganache and the Guiness Extra Stout I used to make the cupcakes:


Cupcakes, cored and ready to be filled:


Dark chocolate whiskey ganache, just after mixing:


I used 2 (perhaps 3) tablespoons of whiskey in the ganache and only later discovered the recipe had called for teaspoons. Whoopsies. Turned out delicious, just needed some extra cooling time.

Ganache after cooling in the fridge:


Filled cupcakes:


I had a terrible time trying to use parchment paper to pipe the ganache. I finally zipped off to the grocery store to pick up a re-usable plastic piping bag and finished the cupcake filling and icing.

Blue buttercream icing with Bailey's:


The Irish cream slightly dulled the blue color, but the taste is worth it.

Beating in the Bailey's:


And tada, some iced cupcakes:


Bonus picture: part of the mess I made in the kitchen beating powdered sugar into butter to make icing:


The cupcakes flew off the tray once enough people discovered how tasty and alcoholic they are. A surprising amount of brownies vanished as well. This was the third batch of brownies I made using cayenne pepper powder and I think I got the amount just right on them. The first batch came out way too spicy -- half a teaspoon of pepper powder. The second batch was a bit too spicy -- two big pinches. This batch got two little pinches -- delicious!

Next batch of brownies will have, as suggested by two of the 4th of July partygoers, melty chip of some kind -- chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, etc. -- and pecans instead of walnuts.
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