Midweek Sightings: Halloween Edition

Saw these at my local Whole Foods. And bought them. Obviously. Most clever pumpkin decoration I ever saw. And the ghosties--I think their eyes are made out of chocolate covered sunflower seeds! They're so cute I almost don't care what they taste like. Almost. Lucky me--they are delicious. The chocolate cake is a little bitter, like a sour cream cake, which I love. And a good ratio of frosting to cake. And also, SPOOKY CATS! IN FRONT OF FULL MOONS! So cute!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Fudge Frosting

Happy Birthday to my Prima! (2 days ago)

She's not a particularly spooky kid, but the past few years she's embraced the fact that her birthday is in the same month as Halloween and she's asked for Halloween-themed cakes. This year was a little different--she was more interested in the flavor of the cake than the decorations. 12-year old brain waves, I'm saying. She likes the combination of pumpkin and chocolate, so I took components of two other recipes and mashed them together. The Pumpkin Cupcakes were really pretty delicious (that was me surprised, because this isn't one of my usual recipe sources--the only alteration I made to the recipe was in baking time, baked each batch of cupcakes for 20 minutes). Light tasting, not muffin-y at all. Which actually turned out to be a little bit of a problem because the Fudge Frosting (a recipe I've used before) was pretty rich and the cupcakes couldn't really compete. The pumpkin got...well...overpowered by the chocolate. Not always (or necessarily) a bad thing. But, I would have liked for them to have been evenly matched. If I were to make something like this again, I would make a milk chocolate frosting. I think that would match the pumpkin flavor without being too much.


TGIP Rating--Pumpkin Cupcakes--KEEPER. A super easy, but not heavy, fall treat. Probably also yummy with the cream cheese frosting in the recipe. Will have to try.

Next up: EVEN MORE pumpkin. One of the few recipes I never tried in the first BAKED book is the Pumpkin Whoopie Cookies. I'm on it.

Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Candied Hazelnuts

This. Is the easiest "fancy" cake you'll ever make. Here's persuasion: I made it while drinking (which is also why there's only one photo...I...forgot to take pix). A lot. With friends who are awesomely distracting. So, if I can do that, you can make it while sober and undistracted. You can find the recipe here.

This. Is also about the best way to usher in Fall. Spicy, pumpkin-y, nutty. So so delicious. Before it's refrigerated (which it will have to be if you don't eat it all in one sitting), the cake is fluffy and light and has a perfect texture (it gets a little more dense BUT STILL DELICIOUS after refrigeration). The frosting is lovely. A little tangy, a little sweet. To tell you the truth I have no idea how much powdered sugar I added, I just kept adding until the consistency looked "right". So. But the best part. The candied hazelnuts. I didn't do them exactly right. Didn't let the sugar boil long enough to dissolve, so it was still a little grainy. And yet still amazing. Spicy and crunchy. And stayed crunchy after refrigeration. Amazingly good. Truly.

TGIP Rating--PCCw/CCF&CH (it's a long name for a recipe, right?!)--KEEPER. I will make this again. And probably often. Maybe even for our Thanksgiving dessert extravaganza. Notes for ME: a half recipe of frosting was perfect for 3-layers; next time do the candied hazelnuts RIGHT. A note for YOU: DO toast your spices. Even if only to make your house smell delicious for two days.

Next up: More pumpkin. Prima has requested Pumpkin Cupcakes with Fudge Frosting for her birthday (12!). So, I'm on the hunt for a good pumpkin cake (not pumpkin carrot) recipe. If you have one, fling it my way. And I want it to be cake-y, not muffin-y.

Rhubarb Pie

Looks like a celery pie, right? Rhubarb is a strange creature. I've somehow managed to avoid it my entire life until now, thinking it would be gross. I was so wrong. I still think it's a weird fruit (?) vegetable (?). What is it anyway? And do people ever do anything with it other than make pie? Seriously, I'm asking.

Thing is, most of the time when you encounter rhubarb in a pie, it's paired with strawberry. I don't like baked strawberries. I just don't. Baking takes all of the love out of them and they become these shriveled up tiny things. So, I've never been tempted at all to try that combination. Shriveled strawberries and some sort of weird pink celery baked together in a pie? Mmm, no thanks.

But rhubarb on its own, I thought that sounded appealing. And it's kind of pretty, isn't it?


What I didn't expect was the flavor. I tried a little piece of it raw just to see what it tastes like. I would recommend NOT trying that yourself. Any moisture that has ever been or will ever be in my body was immediately obliterated by that thing. But, baked? In a pie? With sugar and lemon zest? A whole different story. It's a little tart, a little sweet. Tastes like something lemony and refreshing and summery. I loved it. I used Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe from my new Pie and Pastry Bible. Lovely. Easy and perfect. Here's a link where someone else posted the recipe, and BONUS, directions for how to make a lattice crust, which I opted not to do this time.

And, I'm happy to report that even though I vowed not to make another pie until we were well and truly into Autumn, my pie crust mojo is back.


Beautiful. Tender and flaky. I'm working on spending more time with my crust edges. Making sure they look beautiful, but also have the right thickness. I still have some work to do on that but I'm getting there. And I am discovering that refrigerating the pie for at least 30 minutes once it's ready to go in the oven really does prevent the shrinkage problem. *crossing fingers* At least so far. Incidentally, in the Beranbaum book, she has several different pie crust recipes using different kinds of fat, including duck fat. I might have to give some of those a try.

TGIP Rating--Rhubarb Pie--KEEPER. Rhubarb, I'm your newest fan. And maybe now that I'm no longer afraid of you I'll try a cherry rhubarb pie.

Next up: Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Candied Hazelnuts--if I can get my friend Jonny to come bake with me. Time for Fall baking!

S'mores Bars

Yum. But we're not there yet. Closer. Much closer than this. But not quite there. Here's the recipe. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that my problem with this recipe was the dark chocolate.

It was too much. Were you suprised? It was delicious, no question, but I felt like it overpowered the toasty marshmallow flavor. I worked hard with my little kitchen torch to get each and every marshmallow perfectly toasted.


So to have that flavor completely masked by the dark chocolate was a little disappointing.

Other than that small problem, these are lovely. The graham cracker layer is the perfect thickness. The cocoa krispies add a crunchiness that is sort of hard to place, but just right. And the marshmallows. You know, they're marshmallows, what could possibly be bad about them?


I actually ended up using a whole bag of mini marshmallows, not just 4 cups. I used 2 cups in the chocolate mixture and the rest of the bag on top. Otherwise it would have been pretty sparse up there.

I can't help but wonder if it's possible to get that real s'mores flavor with anything other than a real s'more. A friend sent me this link with lots of other possibilities to explore. Try them and let me know what you think. Or perhaps I'll just bookmark it and try one of those recipes next summer when I do my (apparently) annual "I didn't have time for enough campfires this summer!" post.

TGIP Rating--S'mores Bars--KEEPER. Next time I'll try it with milk chocolate. I know. But that's what a s'more tastes like to me--plain old Hershey's Milk Chocolate bars.

Next up: Rhubarb found. Pie imminent.

Midweek Ruminations: 2 (or maybe 3) Things

Thing 1--I said I was going to make Cinnamon Zucchini Muffins next. And I did. I just neglected to take any pictures as documentary proof. So, you'll have to trust me that they were amazingly delicious. Mostly because of these tasty little morsels:


And, that link may be your best way to find them. We visited several different grocery stores looking for them, found them on maybe the 5th or 6th. Were they worth the hunt? OH YES. And now I'm trying to think of other ways I could use them. In pancakes? Yes. In Snickerdoodles? Why not?! And now that I know where to find them, I'm set!

Thing 2--Remember these sweet little babyangels from my Wine Cake post?


I have, for a while now, been occasionally checking ebay and Etsy to see if anyone was selling a set, and SUCCESS! A complete set, in perfect condition, still in their original box.

I think they're a little smaller in scale than The Pie Queen's, and will therefore require skinnier candles, but still! Aren't they the cutest things you ever saw?!

I can't wait for an opportunity to use them.

Thing 3--Sometimes I am a cupcake whore. Somebody gave me one of these at work yesterday:


(from Mrs. Backer's Bakery in Salt Lake City) and it made my day in ways you can't even imagine. They're not the best cupcakes on the planet. But they're certainly not the worst. And it was JUST what I needed. So my message to you is this: if you have a cupcake to spare, give it to someone who looks like they need a cupcake, you have no idea how happy you might make them.

Who am I kidding? Is there any such things as a SPARE cupcake? No. Except in my office, apparently. Weird.


Next up: I had a magical summer doing this. The only problem is that nightly rehearsals leave little time for summer evening campfires or...more specifically...s'mores. So. Before Labor Day comes and shuts the door on summer, I'm making a s'mor-ish dessert. Nothing complicated or fancy. But it looks so yummy to me, I have to try it.

Fresh Blaspberry Pie

I intended to bake a rhubarb pie this week. All rhubarb, no strawberries, no cherries. Just rhubarb. Because my friend Dan issued the challenge. And it was his birthday. But, silly me, having never worked with rhubarb before AT ALL, I didn't realize it's out of season right now. And when rhubarb is out of season it is apparently not available ANYWHERE. So. I made this instead. Partially because a stylish birdie told me Dan likes berry pies. And partially because he's my favorite BLASPhemer. And I could make a clever pie name for him--BLASPberry. It works for me even if it doesn't for you.

And to tell you the truth, I didn't taste this pie. I tasted a little bit of the filling as I made the pie, but that was about it. I liked what I tasted. I liked the way the lemon zest sort of accentuates the other flavors. Not too sweet, just right in the "glaze" department. I heard reports that the pie was good, but I can't confirm that first hand. You'll have to make it and tell me what you think. Because I'm not making it again anytime soon. But only because I've had enough heat-induced pie crust trauma this summer to last me a couple of years. So I vow to make no more pies until Autumn comes. For real. Not that fake Autumn that we sometimes get in September only to return to over-90-degree weather. Real Autumn that comes in October and brings crunchy, smoky, brownish, spicy things with it.

Anyway, here's the recipe:


Fresh Blaspberry Pie *click here for printable version*

1 baked 9 inch crust, cooled
1 c. sugar
16 oz fresh blueberries
18 oz fresh raspberries
2/3 c. water
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1/3 c. water
½ tsp lemon zest
Whipped cream

Crush 4 oz of the blueberries and 6 oz of the raspberries together. They don’t have to be crushed too finely, some chunks are fine. Mix the sugar and crushed berries together with the ⅔ cup water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Mix cornstarch and ⅓ cup water to make a slurry. Add to the sugar and berry mixture and cook over medium low heat until thickened, stirring almost constantly. Stir in lemon zest. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Mix remaining berries together and place in cooled pie crust. Pour sauce over fresh berries. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.

Top with whipped cream.


From what I can tell...

TGIP Rating--Fresh Blaspberry Pie--KEEPER. Although, I have to admit, I'm partial to the regular, old Fresh Raspberry Pie. When rhubarb is back in season, I WILL make a pure rhubarb pie for Dan. Somebody set an alarm for me, or something.

Next up: Cinnamon Zucchini Muffins. You know you're about to have 25 pounds more zucchini than you know what to do with.