Fudgy Graveyard Brownies

Oh boy. This Wednesday is not only Halloween, but it’s also the first Halloween where I get to give out candy to kids in my adult life. MY FIRST TIME!

Don’t you wish you could give out hand baked treats to Trick or Treaters without it being creepy or allergenic or a potential poison? That is definitely my ideal world.

I want to see a cute little princess, and be like “Hey little Princess, want a hand made graveyard brownie?”, without her parents giving me a death stare. Not possible.

So I’ll give out Kit Kat bars and share my Halloween baked treats with my adult friends who like me, wished so badly that they had the metabolism of those little kids who will probably eat chocolate until they’re sick Wednesday night. I used to. I think I need to make some 4-year old friends.

Have a happy and fun Halloween!

Fudgy Graveyard Brownies
Recipe lightly adapted from Picky Palate
Makes 6 giant brownies

Ingredients:
1 box of your favorite Brownie Mix
6 Milano Cookies, (for grave)
3 Oreo Cookies, crushed
6 Pumpkin candy corns and 6 normal candy corns

For icing:
1 cup milk chocolate, melted
1 tsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup icing sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8 x 8-inch baking pan. Bake brownies according to box instructions and let cool completely. Cut into 6 rectangles.

Mix the frosting ingredients together and then melt them either over a double burner or in the microwave. Frost brownies with icing reserving 2 Tablespoons for piping the cookies.

Cut one of the rounded bottoms off of the Milano cookie, and pipe RIP onto it with the chocolate icing. Press a Milano cookie into the back of each brownie.

Crush your Oreos and sprinkle a tiny bit in the center of each cookie for the “dirt”. Top with a candy corn pumpkin and candy corn. Serve!

Happy Hallowe’en!

Some Spooky Sights!

Site’s? Sights? Whatev’s. I’ll be showing you a few cute and cool Halloween sights on a few site’s in this post. I’m right into the spirit this year. I’d say my best costume to date was my Mad Hatter costume. Hello there! What are you being this year??

I LOVE Halloween. I live on the 9th floor of an out-of-the-way apartment and I still decorate the place to the max, pimp out my pumpkin, and buy candy just on the off-chance a cute baby Batman, baby Yoshi, or real baby hippo comes by. I know that if I were a baby hippo, this scene would blow my mind:

Photo taken from Crate and Barrel.

OR! I could bake some of the below tasty, super-creative, treats for the hippos! Like these pumpkin whoopie pies.

Image taken from Cookies and Cups.

Crazy cool Witches Legs.

Photo taken from Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.

Super Spooky Oreo Bats.

Photo taken from Our Best Bites.

Or how about these freaking awesome Graveyard Brownies??

Photo taken from Picky Palate

Whatever happens in the kitchen between now and that magical day that is October 31st, I will be ready to go with treats to last until Christmas. Thank you food bloggers! For being awesome, and sharing your strange and wonderful Halloween treats!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I’m so excited for Halloween this year. I have my own apartment to decorate as I please AND I just adopted a new cat from the humane society. So, I have a new friend to watch me prep for the 31st. In honour of my new kitty (Molly), my boyfriend and I carved our Halloween pumpkin into a cute kitty pumpkin! This was good for several reasons, the most important being the amazing pumpkin seeds that we roasted.

I look forward to roasted pumpkin seeds every year, and am obsessed with the plain sea-salted variety. This year I scoped out Cookin’ Canuck‘s blog and tried her Cinnamon sugar seeds as well. It was a very good idea. To begin, scoop all of the innards out of a large pumpkin.

Thoroughly separate the seeds from the “guts” and place the seeds into a strainer. Rinse the seeds leaving a bit of pumpkin on them (I like them better this way).

Dry the seeds with a kitchen towel, and place them on a large baking sheet. Toss with oil. See recipes for salted pumpkin seeds and cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds below.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds – Two ways
Makes approximately 2 cups roasted pumpkin seeds

Ingredients:
Plain, salted seeds:
1/2 the seeds from 1 large pumpkin (about 1 cup)
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp sea salt

Cinnamon sugar seeds:
1/2 the seeds from 1 large pumpkin (about 1 cup)
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, with rack placed in the middle of the oven.
2. Scoop all of the innards out of a large pumpkin.
3. Separate the seeds from the “guts” and place the seeds in a strainer. Rinse (leaving a bit of pumpkin on the seeds) and drain.
4. Place all of the seeds on a kitchen towel, cover with another kitchen towel, and pat dry thoroughly.

For plain, salted seeds:
5a. Place half of the seeds on a baking sheet and toss with oil.
6a. Add sea-salt and spread in a single layer.

For cinnamon sugar seeds:
5b. Place the other half of the seeds on a baking sheet and toss with oil.
6b. In a small bowl, stir granulated sugar and ground cinnamon. Toss the oil-coated seeds with the cinnamon sugar mixture.

7. Place baking sheet in the oven and cook until the seeds are golden brown and crunchy (test one, but be careful because it will be hot), about 25 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Cool and serve.

These stay good in an air tight container for weeks!!

Spooky Mocha Minicakes

I can’t explain how much I love holiday baking. Decorating brings out this weird side of me that I can either a) share with those I bake for, or b) eat all of the weirdness and destroy the evidence. I prefer option “b” as I am a chocolate, and icing addict! Let’s get started shall we?

Cupcake Ingredients:
3 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups sour cream
1 cup strong coffee, cooled

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake papers.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, (about 4 minutes).
Add eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute each. Beat in vanilla.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

Add the dry mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, and then add sour cream. Beat together.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the cooled strong coffee to the batter. Add in a slow steady stream to prevent splashing. The batter will become fairly thin and smooth.

Pour mix into cupcake papers and bake for about 15 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.

Remove from oven and set on wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool to room temperature on wire racks.

FINALLY: Add icing. I just used bought chocolate and vanilla (lazy, I know).

Decorating the cupcakes should be the fun part. You can buy a variety or colours and cute toppers at any bulk food store. Most importantly though….eat the icing while baking.

My personal choices for “toppers” are mini oreo cookies, red licorice strings, black spinkles, and LOTS of colours! Mmmmm.