Sweet and Salty Pumpkin Seeds

Have you carved your pumpkins yet?  If not, get to it; it's Halloween week!   If you're ahead of the game, I hope you didn't throw out the built-in snack.

This is the one and only time of year we eat pumpkin seeds so it's important to roast them with the perfect blend of sweet and salty.  Confession: I have never gotten this quite right, until now.  I'm convinced the secret ingredient is the brown sugar.

Mr. agreed these are the best yet and seriously addictive!
 

2c pumpkin seeds

3 TBSP vegan butter, melted

3 TBSP brown sugar

3/4 tsp. sea salt + a little extra 

1/4 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. cumin

1.  Clean the seeds by swishing them around with water in a large bowl.  Set aside to dry.

2.  Once seeds are dry, preheat oven to 250°

3.  Add seeds back to the bowl and add melted butter, brown sugar, sea salt, chili powder, and cumin; toss to coat.

4.  Pour seeds evenly into a prepared 11x13 baking dish.  Bake 90 minutes, stirring every 30 minutes.

5.  Remove from oven and season with additional salt, to taste.

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes

Yes, I know Halloween is over but I just had to add a post about the cupcakes I served for dessert that evening.  After assembling the cupcakes, I have to admit I was quite impressed with myself.  The glass looked so real which made for a fantastic presentation.  There was even a conversation in my house that went something like this:

"Is that glass?"

"Yes."

"Is it real?"

"Well....."

"Is it edible?"

"Ummm....sure.....go ahead.....eat it."

{Bwahahahaha!!!}

This is what I did:

1.  Baked the cupcakes (Devil's Food from a mix) and topped with vanilla frosting (from a can).

2.  For the glass:  In a large saucepan, mix:

 2c water

1c corn syrup

3 1/2c white sugar

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

Boil, stir continuously, until mizture reaches 300*
on a candy thermometer.

Pour onto a parchment-lined jelly roll pan;
allow to cool completely.

Remove "glass" from pan by lifting it out with the paper.

Cover with another piece of parchment paper
 and hit it with a hammer.  It will shatter like real glass!!               

3.  For the blood:  In a small bowl, mix together:

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 TBSP cornstarch 

15 drops red food coloring

1 drop blue food coloring

4. Top cupcakes with broken glass and drizzle with blood.

How to Cook a Pumpkin

I originally posted this last fall but, since I am planning to bake the first pumpkin of this fall season today, I decided to repost this entry:

In all the years I have been baking with pumpkin (pies, cakes, muffins, cookies, etc.) I have never, ever used a real pumpkin. I know the stuff in the can is labeled Real Pumpkin but I'm talking about the non-canned variety that only shows up in the grocery stores in the fall and winter. Not the big, jack-o-lantern ones, the other ones. The ones that sit with all the other gourds that I don't know what to do with, besides decorate. I actually set out today to buy a can of pumpkin for a cake recipe but, upon discovering that the store did not have canned pumpkin in stock, I decided to try baking a whole one. What I found is that it's ridiculously easy, fills my house with an amazing aroma, and a medium size pumpkin yields about 3 cups.

This is how I did it:

1. Cut the top of the pumpkin off, close to the stem.

2. Cut the pumpkin in half, lengthwise,

and remove the seeds and stringy stuff.

3. Spray a baking pan and place pumpkin halves in pan, face down.

4. Cover with foil and bake at 375* for about 1 hour.

5. When cool enough to handle, scrape pumpkin out of its shell.

At this point you can mash or puree, if you like,

but mine was so soft that it wasn't necessary.

So easy! I may never buy canned pumpkin again!

Candy Corn Bark

I put off buying Halloween candy this year because I knew that once it was in the house, the kids and I would consume it like....well, candy. This is especially true of candy corn. It was on sale for $1 a bag and I somehow convinced myself we needed multiple bags of this stuff. Not for trick-or-treaters - just for us! So now I'm looking for recipes that will help me use up the candy corn. I found one on Allrecipes and changed it up to suit my tastes. So here's my version:

16 Halloween Oreos, chopped
1 1/2 c. broken pretzel sticks
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1 bag of white chocolate chips
1 c. candy corn
Halloween sprinkles

1. Spread the cookies, pretzels and cranberries onto a lightly greased baking sheet.

2. Melt chocolate 30 sec. at a time in the microwave, stirring frequently until melted. Remove from the heat while there are still a few chunks, and stir until smooth.

3. Drizzle chocolate with a spoon over the goodies in the pan, spreading the top flat to coat evenly (I used a piece of sprayed wax paper for this step).

4. Top with candy corn and sprinkles. Let cool until firm. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Molded Halloween Candy

I found candy molds on sale at Michael's and decided that I had to have one. If you have never played with these molds, I highly recommend it. This really is no-stress candy making. In fact, I don't even know that I would qualify this as candy making so much as it is candy painting and candy pouring.

All I did was paint the black parts with icing color and pour in melted white chocolate. The ghosts are actually supposed to be the backs of the skulls but I wanted some variety.

You just paint, pour, and set in the fridge. It's that easy!

Halloween Ghosties!!!

I'll just start by saying that I think these little ghosties are adorable! All you do is coat Nutter Butter cookies with candy coating (I used Wilton's), set them on wax paper until dry, and decorate. The coating process can get a little messy but - so what? - they're so cute!

* Recipe from Taste of Home.