Halloween Cake

I made a cake for a Halloween party I went to. The host was going to make all the desserts herself and wanted to do a black and white cake that was a couple of layers and fancy with a spider web decoration but didn't have time and asked the rest of us to bring dessert instead.  I decided to stick with her black and white cake theme but didn't have the time and/or energy to try to make the fancy cake she wanted so I winged it ("winged", get it? 'cause it is a bat cake?) by using a bat cookie cutter and bat sprinkles to make a black and white bat cake. After frosting the cake with white frosting, I simply put the cookie cutter in the middle of the cake, put sprinkles inside the cookie cutter, and gently pressed the sprinkles into the frosting to keep the bat shape.

Cowboy Cupcakes

I guess there isn't a whole lot to say about these cupcakes.  I made cupcakes, frosted them with red frosting and stuck some sheriff's badges in them for Older Sister's baby shower.  I think they turned out pretty cute.

Recipe: Chocolate & Candy Cane Christmas Tree Cookies

I know it is almost a full month after Christmas and I'm finally finishing up my posts about the cookies I made but I've been super lazy for the past 3ish weeks and why shouldn't I be?  I don't have a job so I can sleep in and never get dressed in real cloths and watch tv and movies all day and no one really cares.  (For the record, I'm trying to start to get up a little earlier and I don't watch tv and movies all day.)

Anyway, I think it was Christmas 2010 that I made these cookies for the first time, except I didn't do them in Christmas Tree shapes, just rectangles.  I got the cookie recipe from the box my cookie press came in and I just kind of winged the rest.  I doubled the cookie recipe because the box said the recipe only made 7 - 8 dozen cookies and 14 - 16 dozen sounded about right.  I think I ended up with something like 26 dozen cookies but since I didn't plan on that many I didn't have enough chocolate or candy canes to cover them all so I ended up with a bunch of naked Christmas Tree cookies.  Which were good.  Turns out I didn't even need the 14 - 16 dozen I originally planned for and since CJ doesn't like minty stuff much, I finally got around to finishing the last one (well, three) yesterday.

The steps to make these are pretty simple:
1. Bake the cookies (recipe at the end).
2. Crush some candy canes (I put them in a freezer ziplock bag, wrap the bag in a dish towel and go to town on them with a rolling pin).
3. Dip all the cookies in melted semi-sweet chocolate.
4. Let them cool in the refrigerator or garage or wherever it is cold.
5. When the chocolate is completely cooled, dip in melted white chocolate.
6. Immediately dip in crushed candy canes.
7. Let them cool in the refrigerator or other cool place.

I melted my chocolate in the microwave (instructions can be found with the cookie bark recipe I posted earlier) using a Pyrex measuring cup.  I kept the chocolate in the measuring cup as I dipped the cookie.  When dipping into the white chocolate then the candy canes, I just had the bowl with the candy canes sitting between the melted white chocolate and the "finished" cookie sheet to make everything really accessible.

My fridge isn't wide enough to put a cookie sheet in side ways so I'm really glad I had some lids for a few of my cookie sheets so I could stack cookie sheets in the refrigerator when the cookies needed cooling.

Classic Spritz Cookies

1 1/2 cups butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thoroughly cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla and almond extract; beat well.

Stir together flour and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough.

Do not chill.  Place dough into Cookie Press and press cookies onto a cooled ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 10 - 12 minutes or until lightly browned around edges.  Remove cookies from sheet; cool on rack.

Makes 7 - 8 dozen cookies.

Recipe: Pretzel, Kiss, M&M Treats

Also on our Christmas plates this year CJ and I put these pretzel, Kiss, M&M treats.  I don't know what they are called but what I have called them is also all the ingredients that go in them, go figure.

We first saw something like this at my cousin's daughter's baby blessing luncheon, except at the luncheon they had Rolos instead of Kisses.  Next year we may do it with Rolos instead but the Kisses are still really good.

Ingredients:
As I said earlier, all you need for this is some pretzels (we used square ones 'cause CJ and I like to be square), some Hershey Kisses (we used two of the regular sized bags), and some plain M&Ms (we used the green and red for Christmas - one bag)

Steps:

1. Place pretzels on a baking sheet.  I covered mine with aluminum foil just in case.

2. Place one unwrapped Kiss on each pretzel.  Bake at about 275 until the Kisses are soft - I put them in for about 5 - 8 minutes but I've read somewhere else that 3 minutes is long enough.

3. Immediately press one plain M&M into the center of each Kiss.

4. Refrigerate until chocolate is solid again.

Done.