Sunday, October 30, 2011

Yummy Little Graves

I love to bake.  And I used to bake all the time.  I am definitely a much better baker than a cook, probably because of the precision in baking.  I prefer exact measurements to adding ingredients to taste.  But within this past year I really haven't had the opportunity to do much baking until recently, and I didn't realize how much I really missed it.  The joy in creating something that tastes good enough to make someone smile is the part I think I look forward to the most.  But I've always just baked.  Not really decorated things.  My few attempts at decorating weren't awesome. 

So, ok, baking not decorating.  Well, I saw this cake in the October Country Living magazine and decided wanted to try something new.  And have a little fun.  :)


Country Living Halloween Cakes
I used to bake for my husband and his co-workers all the time but now I'm in a job where I can bake for my co-workers, so I thought this would be a fun opportunity to treat them instead.  Sorry sweetie.  So, I have a picture of this cute cake, but I'm more of a cupcake gal.  My head gears went to spinning, and this is what I came up with.  It's really the same idea as the cake, just in individual form. 

First, I whipped up some basic chocolate cupcakes.  I had thought black liners would be fitting, but I live in a small town with limited resources, and since this was kinda done on the fly, these pumpkin liners were it.  But they work.

 
Next, I mixed up a batch of my fav frosting recipe.  It's a concoction of my own that I love to use, but I've never made it chocolate before and....O. My.  It's gooooood.  So I have my chocolate frosting and my chocolate cupcakes.  I opted to spread the frosting rather than pipe in order to create a flatter surface.  But in hind sight, I might have liked piping better.  I didn't get as much frosting on the cupcakes as I would have piping it and I think they needed it since it was a denser cake.
 
I also made sure I would have a little bit of frosting left over to write on each tombstone.
 
 
Once all the little cakes were frosted, I took Oreos and pulverized them into crumbs.  Then each frosted cupcake was dipped into the dirt, because, you know, every spooky graveyard has to have dirt.  I also thought if I made the little piles of dirt like the cake, it would be much too messy.
 
 
Next, I took some oblong sandwich cookies and broke them in half.  Realizing I didn't have much frosting on the cakes to hold the cookie up, I stuck toothpicks in each broken half to help it stand on the cupcake. 


After I placed the remaining frosting in a piping bag, I piped RIP onto each cookie half.  Once they were all piped, I stuck them on each "grave."


Ok, I'm going to divert....just a little.  I really wanted the skeletons on my cakes, just like on the big cake.  But again, I had limited resources.  I was hoping to at least find those really cheap, flat, neon-colored skeletons, because, while they wouldn't be like the CL cake, at least I would have skeletons.  So I went to our local blue box store thinking surely they'll have something.  Nada.  Zip.  Ugh. 
 
So I thought, well, white chocolate covered pretzels could work for skeletons and at least they would be edible.  Nope.  None of those either.  Really?!  At that point I felt defeated because that really was my only option.  Or so I thought.  I had also wanted those pumpkins that are like candy corn, but couldn't find them either.  I had to settle for these marshmallows that were shaped like pumpkins, ghosts and moons. 
 
So I leave with my marshmallow purchase, and on the verge of thinking these are not going to turn out cute at all, my nearly burnt-out light bulb lights up again.  We also have a dollar store.  Maybe, just maybe, they might have something.  So I went, I looked, was about to leave empty handed, when a wee little voice told me to look one more time.  Man am I grateful for those inner voices!  Yeah, that's right.  Voices, ha ha!  Much to my excitement, I find these. 


I scooped them up, brought them home, and broke them apart.  I ended up only using the skulls, arms and legs, but it would have been cool to have bones all over the cakes.  Maybe next time.....


So I have my "graves" with the "headstones," I just needed the bodies.  After strategically placing each bone and marshmallow, I had a yummy little graveyard.


Here they are.  Ready to make smiles.  And boy did we need them.  That day at work ended up being a doozy.


Hope they made you smile.
Happy Halloween!

P.S.  My hubby did end up taking a few to work.  So he wasn't completely left out.  ;)

Ta ta for now....

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