BE MADE: 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.