Halloween Tricks & Treats

Holidays are always the best time for creating, as you can guarantee you'll be invited to a party in which you will be asked to bring goodies. For my son's PreK class Halloween party this year I was in charge of bringing fruit & dip. Obviously I couldn't just bring some cut up apples and caramel dip, no because I have to be complicated at all times. After vigorous searching through Pinterest (best time killer ever!) I came across several cute apple ideas and settled on something simple. Cookie cutter cored apple slices.

Originally featured in Jewels of a Child 

Now I was late on finding this and wasn't able to purchase the proper tools to make such a cute design, so I had to get crafty. I thought long and hard about what I could use to cut the core out to attempt to make a pumpkin shape in my apple slices and suddenly it hit me. 

Frosting Tips! As a cake decorator I had plenty of those around. After various trial and error I decided to go with a large 2D tip (the base) for the pumpkin and a 104 petal tip for the stem.    I bought a bag of apples and washed them up real nice, then sliced them from the top down.  Each apple gave me about 5-6 slices. 



 Then I cored each slice with the 2D tip and followed up with the 104 petal tip (wider side up) producing a rather decent image of a pumpkin.

Serve with Caramel dip.

Mamy took a different approach on treats, one that kids (and myself)  love the most, CHOCOLATE!   Using a recipe found on Taste of Home, Mamy created these adorable little spider cookies.

• 1 package (18-1/4 oz) chocolate fudge cake mix
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 can (16 oz) chocolate frosting
• Shoestring black licorice, cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
• 1/4 cup red hot candies

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, butter and egg (dough will be stiff).  Shape into 1 inch balls.  Please 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until set.  Cook for one minute before removing from pans to wire racks.

Spread a heaping teaspoonful of frosting over the bottom of half of the cookies.  Place licorice pieces on each side of the cookies for spider legs; top with remaining cookies.  For eyes, attach two red hot candies with frosting to the top of the spider.

Mamy's Notes:  In order to make the creepy spiders less fattening, I used light butter, sugar free cake mix and sugar free frosting (both made with splenda).  Instead of black licorice I used red because the store was out and the eyes were made with M&Ms instead of red hots.

 For my Grandmother's church gathering I was asked to compete in the Pumpkin carving contest, so without any debate on carving ideas I searched for an owl pumpkin as I am absolutely inlove with owls!  I think they are just too adorable and currently I am awaiting my invitation to Hogwarts.   

Originally created by Brett Bara  

 After a bit of searching I came across this amazing design.   Looks complicated right?  Ofcourse, its me I can't do simple!

 I free handed the design onto my pumpkin and within two hours, I had an extremely awesome replica of this little cutie with whom I named Pigwidgeon. (Potter fan?  Guilty.)  

Pigwidgeon

Pigwidgeon received lots of money during the contest which was all donated to a local children's home. He was created using carving tools that can be purchased at Walmart, they come in a kit with stencils (which obviously I didn't use!) .  His wings were were created with a peeler also found in the kit.

Hope you enjoyed our Halloween Tricks & Treats and we hope all of you have a Happy and Safe Halloween! 

Mucho love, 
Lesha & The Mamy