Mammograhams are chocolate covered graham crackers. Milk chocolate covered plain graham cracker and dark chocolate covered a cinnamon graham cracker. The dark chocoalte is my favorite!

Top Tier: Vanilla cupcake (colored & layered yellow and orange) topped with vanilla frosting and a candy corn. Middle layer Apple Spice cupcakes. Bottom layer is Vampire cupcakes. Red velvet cupcake with strawberry preserve filling, cream cheese frosting and a vampire bite!

Vivian made homemade whole wheat bones for people who love their four-legged friends!

I’ve been wanting to make some Halloween bark.  I originally wanted to add candy corn and caramel pieces but my kids voted against it. Man they always get their way. Well considering they will be eating most of it I bend. LoL  Next time instead of melting and smoothing out the chocolate, I will mix the ingredients into the melted chocolate so it will be hidden and top with the Halloween sprinkles.  Because as I was breaking it up the some of the M&M’s would crack in half.  Didn’t bother me to eat the pieces but I think it would look better.

These are my Skulls & Bones cupcakes. They are a triple chocolate cupcake filled with a marshmallow creme, frosted with milk chocolate and topped with a colored chocolate body part.  Next time I will insert the feet & hands into the cupcakes so they are rising out of the cupcake.  I couldn’t do it this time since they were being transported to work and the container I had wouldn’t fit them sticking up.


My favorite. I needed to make some Halloween chocolate apples for the lil kids next door when they come trick or treating. My neighbors children love coming to our decorated house! I’ll post some pictures this week of the outcome.



Last but not least the punk rocker sporting a mohawk Bailey, who also dresses up for the occasion!

ROCK ON!!!

I hope you have a safe and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! We’ll be dressed up scaring the trick or treaters on the front lawn. MUAHAHAHAA!

So if you hear their screams it’s because of us!

Wondering why I’m talking about the Food Network?  It’s because of this:
This challenge is like Iron Chef and Chopped.  I have no idea how the Chefs can handle the pressure, the quick thinking and time restraints.  Never mind the secret ingredient.  On Iron Chef you are given only 1 ingredient but they must make up to 5 dishes.  Chopped you must make 1 dish but from 3-5 ingredients.  Half the times I scratch my head wondering what some of these things actually are.  For instance crosnes pronounced crones.  I’ve never heard or have seen these gnarly lil buggers before.  They are the Chinese artichoke but taste like a potato.  So like these two shows I’m given 2 ingredients to bake or cook with.  This is the very first challenge and the ingredients to use is Apples and Caramel. I have the option to make up my own recipe or find a recipe.  Over 100 foodies have joined this Challenge on Sheryl’s site.  Pretty cool huh?

I have to admit, this time I took the challenge very safe and very easy.  No I didn’t make caramel apples. Close though.  I hopped over to Pillsbury’s website and found this recipe that I adapted from.
Caramel Apple Biscuit Pops
adapted from Pillsbury
makes 12

1 can Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits
2 TB margarine; melted
1.5 medium granny smith apples; peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
3 TB granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
15 wrapped caramels; unwrapped and cut each into quarters
1/4 cup caramel sundae syrup; warmed (optional)
12 cupcake liners
12 craft or lollipop sticks

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the can of biscuits into 6 pieces place in a mixing bowl.  Add butter, apples, sugar, cinnamon and caramels. Gently mix.

Spoon mixture into each lined muffin pan.

Bake 18 – 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Immediately remove each biscuit pop from the cupcake pan and place on platter that you will be serving them on.  The bottoms are buttery so I lined them all with an extra cupcake liner.

Warm up the caramel sundae sauce in the microwave for 10-15 seconds and lightly drizzle on top.  Push a lollipop stick in and serve immediately.
The stick cannot actually pick up the pops, its purely for decoration.  V and I ate these with a fork, but the cannibal I mean N ate them with his hands.

See easy, I told you!

N preferred the extra caramel sauce drizzled on top, V didn’t think it needed it.  You can eat these in the morning for breakfast, a snack or for dessert. If you don’t eat these right away the caramel will harden.  I’m sure you can just pop it into the microwave for 10-15 seconds to warm up and get all gooey again.  What am I thinking of, you won’t have any left over because you ate them all and need to make a batch for the rest of the family members.
 Make sure you check out all the other foodies recipes, because I know you will be running to the grocery store to purchase some apples!!!

Pssssst Next month the two ingredients are cream cheese and pumpkin.  If you have any ideas send them over my way!

I hope these cupcakes will make people smile while they eat them and they also smile when they remember that they just  helped people.  I know some people wish they could do something more or they don’t have a lot of money to spend to make a difference.  But seriously your $2 can because you just bought a cupcake.   And because you took your friend and your neighbor with you to the fair and they stopped by our table they also purchased a cupcake.  Now 97 other people came in and followed suit then $200 is being donated. See, you made a difference!

Okay granted I didn’t make 100 cupcakes but there will be plenty of things to purchase at our table and munch on.

These are golden cupcakes with PINK vanilla bean buttercream frosting.
Lets add a PINK chocolate ribbon and sprinkle some PINK sanding sugar.
 Oh, I almost forgot these cupcakes were baked in a PINK ribbon cupcake liner. Lots of PINK.  I was going to add some pink to the cupcake batter but didn’t want to go overboard. LoL

BUY ME!

Sweets sale information:
Saturday October 15th
9am-2pm
Dighton Community Church
2056 Elm Street
Dighton, MA 02715
Feisty Flamingos Team
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed breast cancer awareness week.

PS (Schedule that mammogram!!) 

Per my previous post, I baked some ribbon cookies to go along with the chocolate ribbon lollipops.  I made a few cookies without the stitching lines and I found that they were very flat and boring.  So I purchased a cutter/embosser made by Wilton’s and immediately knew I made the right decision.  I like how it looked like I just cut out a regular ribbon and added texture.

I rolled out the pink fondant, and used the cookie cutter and cut out the ribbon. I had to trim off a little fondant excess that lingers around the sides.  I lightly brushed the cookie with a corn syrup/water mixture.  I find the straight corn syrup adds too much sweetness so I water it down some.  I place the ribbon fondant on the cookie and lightly press to apply.  Using the Wilton’s embosser I went around the edges then went up the middle too.

These will be on the sweet sale table, I hope that they will be a hit!

Making Strides through the American Cancer Society holds a walk and this year it’s on October 30th.  The team that I belong to is the Feisty Flamingos and last year we raised over $3,300!! Not too shabby eh?  We held two bake sales and this year we will be doing the same one is public the other is private and held at work.

If you are in the Massachusetts area take a ride down to Dighton on Saturday October 15th and stop by the Community Church located on 2056 Elm Street.  They have their Calico Fair going on and we will have a table selling home-made goodies!  They are all breast cancer related.  Chocolate covered Oreos, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate lollipops, mammograhams, cupcakes, cookies and much more!  All proceeds will be donated to this great cause.  If you cannot make the sweets sale but would like to donate to our group please click here.

I know due to economic times everyone is feeling the pinch and it’s hard to come up with extra cash, but if can and would that would be great!!!

You will see these at the sweets sale!

I’m also making some cookies that will be sitting along side these pops. I did notice that this plastic cookie cutter that I purchased leaves some dough around the edges. I’m becoming a little bit of a perfectionist so it needed to be removed.  Pronto!
Horrible isn’t it, drove me mad! I never knew that I would use a sharp paring knife for baking.  Normally that handy tool gets used for the vegetables.  You can also use a microplane, but mine is a little wide and hard to get into the middle.  So the paring knife did the trip to cut/scrape the middle and all around the sides!  Remember cookies can be a little fragile so be easy.  Then with a brush wipe off all the crumbs.  You wouldn’t want to see these pesky crumbs messing up your cookie while you are decorating.
  See, totally works!

Come back and I’ll show you how these cookies were decorated.

The broom handle was a pain since it’s very slim and a couple of them broke.

I also received an order for Halloween themed cookie pops for a Halloween themed birthday party! I wish when I was a kid I had Halloween themed party!! But since I’m born in April I guess it would’ve been geared towards bunnies and flowers. Kids and family would’ve thought I was a little “off” if I wanted them to come to my house dressed up in costumes in spring.

These are made from my trusty vanilla sugar cookie recipe that you can find here.
These spider web cookies is made with white fondant and I painted in the web.  The “paint” is super black food gel with a little bit of water. I think they look great for party favors.
A lot of freehand word. Cutting the hair, the mouth and scar.
 The mummy is my favorite, he’s all wrapped up in white fondant.  I do wish I had bigger eyes, so next time I’ll make them with a different size.
Here is the Halloween bucket of pops that went to the party.  The cookies are staring at you waiting to be picked.  The customer was very pleased with the pops, the birthday girl and her friends all enjoyed them!

I hope you enjoyed these past two weeks of Halloween themed cookies.  I do wish I had more time to make more recipes.  Luckily there is time before Halloween. Muahaha

Last but not definitely not least, it was my beautifully talented soon to be college student V’s birthday.  She turned 17 on Friday. Yes, 17 already.  She has grown up way to quick! If anyone has the magic potion to keep your kids from ageing please inbox me! LoL
V likes to help decorate her birthday cake.  She chose a red velvet cake and vanilla butter cream frosting.  She didn’t want it to be wrapped in fondant but using the fondant as accents.  She freehand drew out a design and cut it out of fondant.  She did an awesome job.  Happy birthday V we love you and are so proud of the young women you have become! Check it out on my FB.

I wanted to make some chocolate sugar cookies so Halloween cookies were a perfect timing.  I also need to practice more with fondant.
I didn’t want to use any royal icing on these cookies just all fondant. I was going for the bubbling oozing look.  Not 100% happy with the bubbling brew, so I maybe changing it up a bit.
He isn’t that scary but he sure is tasty!  Would you like the chocolate sugar cookie recipe? I thought you would.  BTW my kids were so happy to get something else besides plain vanilla sugar cookies to eat.  I’m sure if you put chocolate on cauliflower my kids would would look at the vegetable in a different light.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies
from Cookie Craft
makes about 16-30 cookies depending on size 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder; dutch processed or non alkalized
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted sugar; room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

In a medium size bowl whisk flour, salt, espresso and cocoa powder together.

Add the egg and vanilla to the wet mixture and mix until incorporated.

Add some of the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl in stages.  Make sure the mixer is on low.

Divide the dough into 2 discs.

Place each disc on parchment paper, cover with wax paper and roll dough into desired thickness. Place parchment paper onto baking sheet and place into refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 350.

Chill the dough, cut with the cookie cutters.  Keep the cookies on the parchment paper and bake for 9-12 using convection or 12-16.  Once the cookies turn deeper brown on the edges it’s time to take out.

Let it sit on the cookie sheet for 3 minutes then remove from pan and place on wired rack to cool.

Once cookies are completely cool then you can decorate with royal icing or fondant.

I had fondant eyes on the bat and some vampire teeth, it just looked odd.  There’s nothing wrong with a plain bat. Just ask Batman. Heh

V really liked the richness of the cookies that she kept eating the undecorated ones while I was preoccupied decorating.

I’m probably drawn to autumn and Halloween because of the colors. Fall is comfort colors, browns, oranges, blacks, golds, rust and burgundy’s. All of those colors are somewhere in my home. Could be why I spend so much time at home, it’s all comfort baby! LoL Halloween orange and black. Those colors just look cool!

I purchased this maple leaf cookie/pie cutter from King Arthur Flour. The selling point was the indenting veins.  I knew I needed to use this with fondant.  I had a mini pumpkin cookie cutter that I also used.

I’m not a spice cake fan, but I really enjoyed the spice cake with the maple buttercream frosting. This time I added a filling to the cupcake. Apple pie! I loved the texture and taste that the apple pie brings to this cupcake.
 I topped these cupcakes with the maple buttercream frosting. OMG YUM!!!!!!YUM!!!
 I found this recipe on Savory Sweet Life and I knew I needed to make it.  The recipe below has been doubled since I always need more frosting to cover two dozen of cupcakes.  I did have a cup of frosting left over.  To me that is NEVER a bad thing. I can spread it on anything that I want during the week. heh

Maple Buttercream Frosting
frosts 2 dozen cupcakes with leftovers

2 cups unsalted butter; softened
7 cups of confectioner sugar; sifted
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 TB milk or heavy cream
1 TB maple extract; you can add more for an intense flavor

Cream butter for three minutes with a paddle attachment.

Add three cups of confectioner sugar on low speed and mix until incorporated.

Add salt, maple extract and 3 tablespoon of milk.  Beat for three minutes.

I changed the attachment to the wire whisk and added 1-2 more tablespoons of milk.  Beat for 30 seconds.

If the frosting is too thin add more confectioner sugar, if it’s too thick add another tablespoon of milk and keep adding by the tablespoon until it’s at the consistency you prefer.

Add frosting to a piping bag and place a star tip or whatever tip you would like to use.

Pipe the frosting on and add a Halloween topper.

A couple of weeks ago she gave me the final favor count and also requested an inexpensive nautical basket to hold them all in.  I had to find something large enough to hold 155 wrapped cookies. So I purchased a large wicker basket and needed to dress it up. I found some medium sized polymer clay white seashells.  The basket came out really cute thanks to my husband as I was stressing out that the seashells were too heavy to stay on the sides with hot glue.
The bride wasn’t sure if 1 cookie would be enough, so I told her I could add a mini cookie; she liked the idea. I then told her the mini cookie can be the alternate cookie; she now loved the idea!

With the colors and the alternating cookie, I think the mini’s made the favors!
The bride was very happy with her favors.  I’ve seen some pictures of her wedding day and she was a beautiful bride!  Thankfully no rain fell the whole day even though it was planned to be a wash out.
Don’t worry it’s not sand on the cookie, I was trying to get a picture of the luster dust that was added.  Luster dust makes everything shine and twinkle. Looks so pretty when the lights glimmered off of it.

The theme this week is Halloween, come in and join the fun on every Sunday (for the most part) to guess the theme or ingredient of the week.
I’ll be posting what these little cuties topped.

Reeling back my love affair of Snickers.
Chocolate.
Nougat.
Caramel.
Peanuts.

How can you NOT like Snickers?
Okay if you have a peanut/nut allergy I can see it.
Or if you don’t like caramel. (If so there is something wrong with you!)
Nougat is soft and sweet.
If you don’t like chocolate. We must part ways I’m sorry.
Just kidding.

What if I said a Snickers cake?
And that its easy?
Ready in about 40 minutes (without cooling time)?
Shaking your head yes now I see.

Good, because I’ll be nice enough to give you the recipe for this.
It’s rich, chocolaty and taste similar to a Snickers minus the nougat.

Sinful Snickers Cake
adapted from Food.com

1 box chocolate cake mix; I used triple chocolate
3/4 cup chocolate; I chopped up chocolate chunks. You can use semi-sweet chips
1 cup roasted peanuts; chopped
1 14oz package of caramels; unwrapped
1/3 cup evaporated milk; can use milk or cream
1/2 cup margarine
1 cup chocolate frosting

Preheat oven to 350 if using glass 9×13 glass pan.  Grease bottom of pan.

Make cake mix per box instructions.

Pour half of the cake mix into the greased bottom.

Place in oven and bake 16-20 minutes.

While the cake is baking, place caramel, butter and milk into a sauce pan.  Mix and melt the caramel until creamy.

Pour caramel on the hot cake.

Evenly sprinkle nuts and chocolate on top of caramel.
Spoon the rest of the cake batter on top. Evenly distributing and making sure nuts, chocolate and caramel is covered.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Cool on cooling rack.

Spread frosting over the cooled cake.

Cut into squares and serve.