Have a Monstrously Fun Halloween!

The boys and I made these little brownie bite monsters as an adaptation of Bakerella's spider bites. Why can I not find shoestring licorice? Anyway, we bought the raspberry gumdrops for eyes but improvised with other candy we had in the pantry. They were really fun to make, and we had fun coming up with their goofy faces!

Pumpkin Cake

I made this cake for my sweet niece Kelsey's seventh birthday. When she said she wanted a pumpkin cake for her October birthday, I thought of Martha Stewart's Great Pumpkin Cake. She makes it with two bundt cakes, one inverted on the other - isn't that clever?

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I made yellow cake for the bottom layer; frosted in between with dark chocolate frosting; and made Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake for the top layer. The orange frosting is all-butter buttercream frosting with orange food coloring, and I made the jack-o-lantern face with a small round cake decorating tip and the same dark chocolate frosting from between the layers. The stem is an ice cream cone covered with chocolate frosting. I made the grooves in the pumpkin with an off-set spatula. At the party, we put some candy corn around the bottom to finish it off.

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I've posted these recipes before, but I'll include them here because I think this is a great cake for this month. If you made a completely chocolate cake, you could make an orange-flavored buttercream (with orange zest and orange extract) for a sophisticated taste. My chocolate cake came out very soft and crumby, so I used a crumb coat - I mixed 1/2 cup of buttercream with 1 tablespoon of milk and lightly frosted it. I then left it in the refrigerator for about an hour so the crumb coat could crust over. I was able to frost the cake without catching crumbs in the frosting. If you need to transport this cake, you can also let it crust over in the refrigerator. I put a piece of aluminum foil over it loosely, and it survived an hour car ride on my lap with no problems.

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Since you are making 2 cakes, this cake should serve 20-30 people.

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Buttercream Frosting (this made enough with about a cup or so leftover)

4 sticks butter, softened

8 cups confectioner's sugar

2 t. vanilla

4 T. milk

orange food coloring (Wilton's gel/paste)

Beat butter with mixer until light. Mix in vanilla. Add sugar one cup at a time. Add milk and orange food coloring and beat until fluffy, at least 5 minutes.

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Hershey's Dark Chocolate Frosting

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Special Dark Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Special Dark Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling coffee

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling coffee (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

Yellow Cake

Preheat oven to 350.

2 1/4 c. flour
3 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 3.4 oz. pkg. vanilla pudding
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 stick butter, softened
2 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
4 egg whites

Grease and flour a bundt pan.

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and pudding mix in a medium bowl.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla.

Alternate adding flour mixture and milk to the batter, ending with flour.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into batter. Gently spoon into pan(s).

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes until golden and no crumbs cling to cake tester inserted in the middle.

Super Easy October Snack

One day a few years ago I ate a piece of candy corn with a salted, roasted peanut. Mirabile dictu! A new snack mix/party nibble/candy bowl treat was born. Even if you don't like candy corn, you will probably like this combination: it takes just like a Payday bar. And it looks so cute for this time of year!

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You can also add candy corn to Chex mix after it is cooked and cooled. I've always heard that red is the most eye-catching color, but for me, orange always draws my attention.

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There is no recipe; combine a bag of candy corn with about half a jar of roasted peanuts and put in a clear or festive bowl.

Apple Crisp

We went to the apple orchard last week with Jack's class - we've gone probably every year since he was three. I bought Mutsu, Gala, and Honeycrisps.

Have you tried Honeycrisps? They are by far my favorite apples, though they are not available year-round in the grocery store and are wicked expensive when they are. At the apple orchard they are a great deal, and I bought a 1/2 bushel for $13. They are sweet, juicy, and crisp.

My in-laws were coming over tonight, and I decided to make an apple crisp using a mixture of all the apples. (By the way, many recipes recommend Granny Smiths for baking, but I think they are too tart.) I figured Ina Garten would have a great crisp recipe, and she sure did. The orange and apple zest adds a brightness to the flavor. I doubt I'll ever make another version after trying hers!

Apple Crisp

Ingredients
•5 pounds apples
•Grated zest of 1 orange
•Grated zest of 1 lemon
•2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
•2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
•1/2 cup granulated sugar
•2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
•1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the topping:
•1 1/2 cups flour
•3/4 cup granulated sugar
•3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
•1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
•1 cup oatmeal
•2 sticks cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking dish.

Peel, core, and cut the apples into large wedges. Combine the apples with the zests, juices, sugar, and spices. Pour into the dish.

To make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and cold butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas. Scatter evenly over the apples.

Place the crisp on a sheet pan and bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are bubbly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Golden Cinnamon-Pumpkin Bars - Whole Grain

Yes, I cut these bars awfully unevenly! But don't let that or the half-eaten pan dissuade you: these bars are really good. Their consistency is like brownies, but with pumpkin flavor.

The bars are adapted from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook. The philosophy of King Arthur was that the recipes in the cookbook would be great on their own merit, not just "good - for whole grain." By using various kinds of whole-grain flours, mixing whole grains with all-purpose flour, letting batters "rest" overnight in the refrigerator, and yes, using butter freely, I think they accomplished this goal.

The large amount of butter in this recipe works out to 1/2 T. per bar if you cut them into 24 pieces, which is not unreasonable. You could replace 1/4 cup of butter with applesauce, and they'd still be great.

Variation idea: swap chocolate chips and raisins or Craisins for the cinnamon chips and apples

Golden Cinnamon-Pumpkin Bars

3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
3/4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 t. ground cinnamon
3/4 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ground allspice
1 large egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup cinnamon chips
1 cup diced unpeeled apple

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Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan

Melt butter in a medium microwave-safe bolw or in a saucepan set over low heat, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the microwave briefly, until it's hot and starting to bubble (1-2 minutes -check midway). Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and allow it to cool until you can comfortably test it with your finger.

Beat in the vanilla, baking powder, salt, and spices. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Stir in the pumpkin, flour, chips, and apple. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake the bars until a sharp knife inserted into the center reveals moist crumbs, 40-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Update on 11/19/09: I just finished making these again for the boys' Thanksgiving feasts, and I wanted to add a few details. First, I can't triple the recipe in my Kitchen Aid mixer. Each batch makes about 20 good-sized whoopie pies.

Second, it's really hard to make these small. I used teaspoons (not measuring spoons) to make them about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. They were 3-4 inches in diameter after baking.

Also, I did make extra icing. They need a good amount because they are so thick. I'd double the recipe for the icing.

Bake the whoopie pies until they are just starting to brown on the edges. You don't want to underbake these because they'll be too sticky.

Finally, they do well wrapped or even layered in waxed paper.

Let me know if you make them and how they turned out!

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Whoopie pies are very popular in New England and Pennsylvania. My mom used to make them for our class birthdays instead of cupcakes. The traditional ones are chocolate with a marshmallow frosting, but there are oatmeal ones, and my dad created a snickerdoodle one.

I really love this recipe for the pumpkin variation. The original recipe from King Arthur Flour cookies makes monstrously huge ones - great for a bake sale or for sharing among four people. I 've changed the directions to make them smaller, but they still end up about 2 -3 inches in diameter. I made them for Jack's and Ben's Thanksgiving feasts yesterday; the filling is a simplified version of the original. I tripled the recipe, and that worked fine.

I noticed in the paragraphs above that I keeps saying "ones" or "them" instead of "whoopie pies." That's probably because I've always felt silly saying their name! But it's true what they say - when you eat one, you say "Whoopie!".

By the way, an assortment of whoopie pies would be a great Christmas gift. Since they are so big, they are indulgent in a way that makes them a good gift. Also, unless you are from the Northeast they are slightly unusual. Finally, they are crazy expensive to buy (but not to make): Dean & Deluca sells a dozen for $55!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

1 1/2 cups (15-ounce can) pumpkin
2 large eggs
2 cups (16 ounces) brown sugar
1 cup (7 ounces) vegetable oil
2 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) molasses or dark corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups (12 3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

Filling
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (4 ounces) cream cheese (reduced fat [Neufchâtel] or full fat)
2 1/4 cups (9 ounces) confectioners’ sugar (add more to taste)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two large baking sheets.

TO MAKE THE COOKIES: In a large bowl, beat together the pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, oil, and molasses. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl, then beat in the salt, spices, baking powder, and baking soda.

Add the flour to the wet ingredients and beat for 1 minute, until the mixture is well combined. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then beat for a short time just to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed. Use two tablespoons to drop the batter onto the prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart to allow for spreading.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until they feel firm to the touch; a slight indentation will remain when you press your finger in the center. Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool while you prepare the filling.

TO MAKE THE FILLING: In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add half the confectioners’ sugar to the butter/cream cheese mixture, beating well. Add the remaining confectioners’ sugar, mixing until blended.

TO ASSEMBLE: Spread the flat side of half the cookies with the filling, using 2 generous tablespoons of filling for each cookie. Top with the remaining cookies. For best storage, wrap each pie individually in plastic wrap.