Happy Halloween!

Last year I baked nothing for Halloween, and seriously regretted  it after looking at all the creative postings on my favorite blog sites. So, this year I wanted to step my game up and showcase some of the recipes I want to try for the fall. Starting with one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. Halloween is such a magical night full of anticipation of being someone other than yourself, eating sweets until you get that sugar high, and my highlight is to watch my little cousin dress up. They are so freaken cute! When I finally have my little butterball of cuteness I'm so going all out.

It was a lot of fun trying the many new recipes and design techniques, but boy was it stressful. My plan was to have the recipes posted for you all to try yourself before Halloween. But with my husband and I new work schedule and the many thousand other things I do, it was just too hard. So, this posting will be mainly on what recipes I tried and how they came out, not really tutorials. Sorry guys, I'm getting better with the blog thing. I will still post the recipes I used because many of the recipes can certainly be used for other occasions. Check them out and I hope you like! Happy Halloween

Ghostly Pumpkin Spice Cake

How can you not smile when you see this cute little ghost. I got the idea from My Cake School blog. As soon as I saw it I had to make it, and it was super easy too. Just took an hour or so to put together the ghost and I let it sit over night. The head is made out of rice crispy treats, and fortunately I was able to snag a pack of crispy treats from the Dollar Store (score), and the marhmellow pumpkins decorated on the side of the cake were on sale at Walgreens for less than a dollar.  If you are looking the most moist, delicious, easy to make pumpkin cake, you have to try this recipe from Baked Profession. My goodness is this cake awesome. I couldn't stop nibbling on the cut off pieces. I even got my husband sampling and he hates pumpkin anything. The Cinnamon cream cheese frosting is ridiculously tasty. I really can't say enough about this cake. I will defiantly make it during thanksgiving. 

After trimming the cake down, I did have quit a bit of cake scraps left over, so I attempted to make some cake pops out of it. Well, so some reason the cake was having a hard time staying on the lolly pops. Too moist maybe? No worries, pumpkin spice cake balls it is!

Pumpkin Spice Cake #2 

So the reason I'm posting this recipe, is for you readers out there that don't have the time to deal with  browning butter or shifting dry ingredients. This recipe uses a yellow cake box mix, pumpkin puree and spices. It was a little odd that the recipe called for double the amount of the eggs the more "homemade"cake called for, but hey whatever works. Is it better tasting than the cake recipe above, heck no! It just doesn't have the rich flavor that the recipe above has. But, it's a pretty good runner up, and if you are able to slap on that finger licking cinnamon icing on top, you got a winner. 

I got the piping detail idea from Baked Perfection. Isn't is  lovely.
And it's awesome how you can see the vanilla bean in the frosting. 

Last minute detail, I added homemade caramel to jazz it up. 

Halloween Candy Bark

Adapted from Bon Appetit

This double chocolate, peanut buttery concoction is just amazing! Don't bother giving kids candy for Halloween. Bless them with this treat, and your golden. I made a batch right before my Young Life Club and they kids devoured it, and was asking me when was I going to make more.  

Here is an idea; If you do decided to go trick or treating with the kids, consider saving half of the candy they get to make the bark. The recipe is so versatile you can really cater to whatever occasion or candy you like. Christmas is around the corner and this candy bark would go great is holiday baskets. 

Ingredients:

• 1 lbs bittersweet chocolate chips (I used 60% Ghirardelli chocolate) 
• 1 lbs of milk chocolate chips
• 3 2.1-ounce Butterfinger candy bars, cut into irregular 1-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup of Heath toffee chips 
• 8 0.55-ounce peanut butter cups, each cut into 8 wedges
• 1/4 cup honey roasted peanut
• 3 ounces of white chocolate (I used Ghiraradelli's)
• Yellow and Orange peanut M&M's, chopped (You could use red and green for Christmas)

Directions:

• Line baking sheet with parchment paper or wax paper. Put bitter sweet chocolate chips in microwave safe bowl. Heat just until melted, make sure not to over heat and burn chocolate.  Pour chocolate onto parchment paper; spread to 1/4-inch thickness (about 12x10-inch rectangle). Heat milk chocolate the same. Spread on top of the bittersweet chocolate. Take a utensil and swirl chocolate together. 
• Sprinkle with Butterfinger candy, toffee, Reese's peanut butter cups, and nuts, making sure all pieces touch melted chocolate to adhere.
• Put white chocolate in microwave safe bowl. Heat the chocolate like you did the above. Dip spoon into chocolate; wave from side to side over bark, creating zigzag lines. Scatter chopped M&M's over making sure candy touches melted chocolate.
• Chill bark until firm, 30 minutes. Slide parchment with candy onto work surface; peel off parchment. Cut bark into irregular pieces.