Oh So Sinfully Delicious...

*Quick note*

I know it has been a while that we've been writing this blog but I still can't figure Blogger text formating out. I think it has a life of its own, 'cuz in every post the spaces between paragraphs are different. *sigh* So don't mind the loooong gaps. Ana.

*End of Quick note*

So what is the the best thing about Halloween?

Dressing up in the most scariest, wildest, funniest, cutest costumes ever?

Scaring others or receiving a fright fest from scary movies, haunted houses, etc?

Eating tons of candy?

All of the above?

Everybody has a different reason for what makes Halloween so great and even though as adults we (apparently) aren't allowed to collect our own stash of candy, we can find other ways to participate, such as baking our own treats. We turned to the queen of Halloween recipes, Martha Stewart, whose array of creative Halloween recipes from cookies to cocktails got us excited. We baked devil's food and pumpkin cupcakes, which are very fitting for the season, and decorated them into scary spiders and worms. Changes to the recipe are made in italics. Happy baking, and have a very spooky but fun filled Halloween!

Halloween Cupcakes

Spider Cupcakes
Original idea from here

Ingredients

Devil's food cupcakes (See recipe below)

Black sanding sugar (we used chocolate cookie crumbs)

1 bag cinnamon candy (we substituted this with mini red M&M's)

1 bag marshmallows

1 bag black licorice (we substituted this with No Name grape flavoured string candy)

Directions

1. Make Devil's food cupcakes.

2. Ice mini cupcakes with whipping cream (or your favourite icing) and coat with sanding sugar/chocolate cookie crumbs. Use cinnamon candy/mini M&M's for eyes. For legs, attach 8 pieces of black licorice/grape string candy. For fangs, cut out tiny cone shapes from a marshmallow and attach.

*Devil's Food Cupcakes
From here

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (we used regular cocoa powder)

3/4 cup hot water

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt (We used regular table salt)

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream, room temperature

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cocoa and hot water until smooth. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

2. Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4-5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture into two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating thins halfway through, until a cake tester (or a toothpick) inserted in centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes, turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool.

*We don't exactly know how much this recipe yields and it is not specified on the site. See Ann's comment below.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
From here

Makes 18 (We halved the recipe and ended up with 12)

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon coarse salt (or table salt)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (we omitted this ingredient. Why? We simply didn't have any.)

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (we omitted this one too, same reason as the nutmeg)

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled)

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

Halloween themed candy, orange and black jelly beans, sprinkles, etc...

Whipping cream, or your favourite icing. May we suggest the maple cream cheese frosting that we used in our pumpkin cake recipe.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.

3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and with a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

4. Spread whipping cream/frosting and decorate with desired candies.

Ann's Thoughts

57: Ana and I ended up making fifty-seven cupcakes! There were cupcakes everywhere, on the desk, by the fireplace mantle, on the dinning room table, all over the kitchen, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few cupcakes hiding in Ana's bedroom. I partly blame this on Martha Stewart. She or whoever published the devil's food cupcake on her site did not record how much cupcakes the batter contained, and it did not occur to us until added 1 1/2 cups of butter, and over 2 cups of sugar which seemed suspiciously a lot. We ended up making what seemed like an endless supply of devil's food cupcakes- it was like we were punked.

The theme for these Halloween cupcakes was bugs which consisted of spiders and worms....so worms aren't really scary at all, but when we saw an image of cupcakes infested with gummy worms it was too cute not to do. Decorating these cupcakes reminded me of doing arts and crafts in elementary school. The only thing is that it's not as easy as Ms. Martha makes it look. The legs for the spiders either fell off, destroyed the cupcake as we kept poking holes in them, or just looked weird. Ana was able to make only one pair of fangs our spiders because it was so time consuming. The worms were easier to make. Ana being the smart cookie that she is, inserted toothpicks inside the gummy worms and gently pushed them into the cupcakes so it looks like they are digging themselves inside the cupcakes.

This week I felt the emphasis was on decorating, however the devil's food cupcakes were literally sinfully delicious! Our pumpkin cupcakes were also really good. We didn't get a chance to decorate them (they were simply too many cupcakes to decorate) but they are the best pumpkin cupcakes I've ever tasted.

Ana's Thoughts

Oh Halloween, I wish you were a tradition in my country, too. Then I could eat...err have all the candies to decorate these cupcakes every year. Please come to my country. I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Ok, enough with the wishful thinking. haha Making and decorating these cupcakes was really fun! The cupcakes themselves were pretty straightforward - be aware that if you choose to make the full recipe you'll end up with more than 50 cupcakes! We chose two different recipes, a pumpkin and a devil's food cupcake. A devil's food, how appropriate. Haha. We here at OSSD think about every detail. Anyway, they were really tasty, specially the pumpkin. Mmmm

I had so much fun decorating them! I wanna do it again!

The only problem for us this week was the pictures. We usually do all the photo shoots with natural light but this week we had to do it inside the house because it was already dark outside, not to mention cold. So they didn't turn out the way we wanted. =S

Anyway, Happy Halloween!! Eat lots of candy, dress up with a funky costume and make these cupcakes!

See you next week. ;)

Receitas em Português


Devido à preguicite aguda, essa semana não postarei as receitas traduzidas. Se tiver interesse por alguma das receitas (Cupcakes de abóboras ou Cupcakes de Chocolate) é só deixar um comentário abaixo. =)