not just nourishment: HALLOWEEN food fun

RER 10.30.14

In lieu of foodie ventures Halloween Wars, I put my kiddies to work during my Food Fun Activity at the school where I work. Like that one time I subbed last year, I made far too many cupcakes the night before and purchased far too much candy. But yesterday, it was all about Halloween. So instead of gushy red candies and jelly hearts, I brought in some creepy crawlers, fall favorite Candy Corn, marshmallow Peeps shaped like cute ghosts and cheery Jack-O-Lanterns, and good old M&Ms. I also went out on a limb and bought some frosting inspired by the spooky holiday. The orange variety was obnoxiously orange and the purple was just not a color that exists in nature. Over all, it was a sweet time! Too much fun and probably, too much candy (if that’s a thing).

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Any fun Halloween adventures headed your way? Too old for trick-or-treating or have your own trick-or-treaters to feed? Parties? Fangs? I would love to hear from you! Happy Halloween my hungry friends!

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10.31.14

RER 10.30.14

MangiaMore: TRICK or TREAT cupcakes

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RER 11.1.13

The final cupcake in the Halloween Cupcake Wars, was crunchy, chocolaty, salty and caramelly, the Trick or Treat Cupcakes. Refined caramel cake, with smooth chocolate buttercream frosting and a fun topping of crunchy homemade caramel corn with savory surprises. Trick or treat, sweet or salty.

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RER 10.29.13

The moment I saw this recipe on The Cake Blog, I knew I needed to make it. It wasn't for the caramel cupcake, or the caramel batter, or the caramel frosting, it was definitely because of the caramel corn. And in the blog post featuring these cupcakes, the caramel corn was littered with another one of my most favorite things, candy corn. I HAD to have it.

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See, the thing with me is, anything with popcorn is simply irresistible. My sister and I went to the Izod Center this weekend to see Mr. JT (!), but once I saw the concession stands offered popcorn, that was my focus. I found myself more fixated on my box of popcorn than his smooth moves. When I'm bored I eat popcorn, when I'm sad I eat popcorn, when I'm happy I eat popcorn. Sweet, spicy, salty, buttery, it doesn't matter. It is literally one of the only things I crave. So when I saw this recipe, and sweet, delicious, salty caramel popcorn parading in the images, I knew it was going to be a contender.

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There was nothing particularly difficult about the recipe, though preparing the popcorn (melting down the butter, sugar and corn syrup until it was that amber color) was the most intimidating. Tossing some sunflower (salty) seeds and candy corn (sweet) on the hot caramel corn right after the oven seemed delicious and intriguing in theory, but in practice the extra toppings did not stick. But no worries, the popcorn won’t last long. 

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 note: I would highly recommend making a full batch of the popcorn, even for half a batch of the cupcakes. It is super addictive.

Instead of making another layer of caramel, caramel frosting, I decided to whip up a quick batch of chocolate frosting to counter the salty sweetness of the popcorn. The chocolate frosting broke up the monotony of caramel, and added another adult flavor to the cupcake’s profile. As it turns out, it was pretty tasty. The caramel cake was not very sweet, and it almost tasted like plain cake with a hint of browned sugar and caramel. The popcorn added a fun texture and a pretty decorative element. All the pieces came together nicely, for a festive treat that can be adapted for any holiday.

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note: do not put popcorn in the freezer or fridge, it turns into a soggy mess (learn from my mistake).

And that wraps up this year’s Halloween Cupcake Wars! Stay tuned for more food fun and check out our facebook and twitter!

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11.8.13

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MangiaMore: S'moreScary cupcakes

RER 10.31.13

The second cupcake contender in the Halloween Cupcake Wars is s’more scary than the first. This spooky cupcake starts with a graham cracker crust, filled with devilishly decadent chocolate cake and topped with a pillow of ghostly white marshmallow buttercream. You know, S’moreScary.

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I knew I wanted to make a s’mores cupcake, and I was creating my own until my little sister found this one on marthastewart.com. Initially, this most definitely dashed my creativity, but in the end, I hardly used her recipe at all. My sister made a basic graham cracker crust by Martha’s standards, and from there, improvisation. I used my all time favorite chocolate cake recipe, as seen on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa powder container. Boom.

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 Even though I desperately wanted to go Martha on these cupcakes and do the fancy meringue marshmallow top and toast it with our non-existent kitchen torch, it just didn’t happen. The recipe was about 8 too many egg whites for my liking  (I tend to mess fluffy things up) and we were out of cream of tartar so I said “bump it!” Found a far less labor intensive (but still love intensive) marshmallow frosting, including one of my favorite things, fluff.*

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*note: In my youth (pronounced yoot), I was that girl that bought a tub of fluff from the local convenience store on my lunch break, and brought it back to school, straight up to the physics classroom. I would grab a few plastic spoons and we would pass around the container as our Finnish teacher would lecture and look at us with disgust (literal sticky notes). Shoot, looking back, I too am looking at ninth grade me with disgust.

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These cupcakes were pretty good; a fun play on childhood memories like my messy shared fluff and making s’mores in our solar oven in like the second or third grade on the roof of my school, and campfires (though, that is probably not real life, because I don’t like camping or fires, but they look nice in the movies). I love that the tasty cake and kind of crispy crust and sweet sweet frosting bring on those kinds of moments, while creating new ones. The different textures are nice, from the crunch of the graham crackers, to the spongy cake and the springy stretchy frosting, but something brings it all together. Probably it is because the flavor combination is classic, and not so easily forgotten. This is my boyfriend’s favorite of the bunch, but…

There is a third. So check back to see what the last contender has to offer!

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11.5.13

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MangiaMore: WORMHOLE cupcakes

RER 11.1.13

First up, contender numeroooo unoooo in the 2013 Annual Halloween Cupcake Wars, the WORMHOOOOLLLEEEE (wormhole, for short) cupcake featuring a deliciously moist apple cinnamon cake and a mature* maple syrup buttercream frosting, topped with mildly creepy gummy worms.

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*note: I used “mature” as the qualifier because I used the real stuff, not Mrs. Butterworths or Aunt Jemima, the syrups of my youth. The grown up stuff. I also used “mature” because I am not entirely fond of the flavor of legit maple syrup, however, the buttercream was the bomb.com.

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RER 10.30.13

This spiced apple cupcakes recipe from chow.com was easy and scrumptious (shredding the apples was probably the most labor intensive part, and waiting for them to be cooked was the most challenging). The maple buttercream frosting, however, was more of the issue. It just would not stop separating, so refrigeration was the solution, even though there are other options out there (i.e. melting a little bit of the frosting in the microwave and then pouring it back into the bowl, or scrapping it and starting over).

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In the end, these are (Believe it or not there are some left, warranting the present tense, but in the freezer to prevent that nasty thing called instant gratification. Patience is a virtue and waiting deserves a reward, a cupcake, obviously.) some mighty tasty cupcakes, verging toward the moist muffin territory. The apple, cinnamon, and maple flavors scream fall, and feel like being wrapped in a furry blanket on a damp cold day. I opted out of the ginger, and went light on the cinnamon, because I really wanted the pretty red gala apples to be the stars of these autumnal cupcakes. Shredded apples made for a fun play of texture, creating a barely there confetti of fruit floating through the dense warm batter. Despite the maple frosting being not so visually pleasing, the taste of the syrup was initially quite strong for the cupcake, but subsided with each bite (all three of them), blending with the cool weather favorite flavors.

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The gummy worm, however, was superfluous (but important in my naming them… wormhole, get it?). Stay tuned for more Cupcake War adventures (in the mean time check out goodies on instagram, facebook and twitter)! 

PS. I would like to shout out my superstar sister, who helped with the cupcake battle, by helping me come up with ideas, cheering me on, shouting out baking directions, and messing with messy maple frosting! Thanks sis!

RER

10.31.13

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