Chocolate skulls

These chocolate skulls are spooky and beautiful and totally awesome.  And, they're super easy to make.  Yup, you read that right!  Super easy!!  But most importantly, they're perfect for Halloween!  I love that you can see their spooky facial details!

These would be adorable served alone on a platter, or even popped on top of a cupcake.  The option to add Halloween sprinkles to the cupcakes is a totally legitimate one, too (I'm loving the Sweetapolita Costumes & Cocktails Twinkle Sprinkle Medley sprinkles that are under the chocolates in the pic above with these golden skulls!  I added a few candy eyeballs and bone sprinkles for an even spookier touch).  Or, they could've been filled with any number of delicious treats -- caramel, peanut butter, or Nutella (my original intent).  You could even add them into a Halloween snack mix!

Also, you could mix up the color on the skulls.  I went with gold, but silver, copper, or even pearlescent would work.  I guess it just depends on your Halloween party theme!

Golden Chocolate Skulls

Ingredients:

Chocolate wafers for melting (I used Mercken's, Wilton candy melts would also work), in your choice of color; I used white
Luster dust, in your choice of color; I used African gold

Tools:

Skull chocolate mold
Disposable piping bag
Clean small paintbrush

Directions:

Melt the chocolate wafers in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, making sure not to burn the chocolate.

Allow the chocolate to cool a little.
Spoon chocolate into the piping bag.
Cut a small hole in the tip so that you can carefully pipe the chocolate

Carefully pipe the chocolate into the cavities in the mold, rather than spooning it in.
Make sure to get the chocolate into all of the crevices, since the skulls are very detailed (eye sockets!  teeth!).
Bang the mold on the counter a few times.
Pop any air bubbles that rise to the top.
Bang the mold on the counter a few more times.
Pop any new air bubbles.
Really make sure that the chocolate gets into every small detail in the mold.

I pop the mold into the fridge for about an hour to ensure that the chocolate hardened.
Remove the chocolates from the mold.
Place them face up (no pun intended!) on a papertowel or sheet of wax paper.

Carefully paint the luster dust onto the chocolate, making sure to get the sides and all the aspects of the face.
Set aside and continue until all skeleton faces are golden (or whatever color you choose).

If you're feeling crazy, you can use a second color of luster dust to detail the chocolates, but that was a little more than I was willing to do at 11 p.m. the night before Halloween.

Yellow cupcakes with strawberry buttercream, and a ghoulish surprise

Do you ever have those times, when you go to the store to buy ingredients you always see there, and that one time that you actually need it, it's not there?  Such was the case for me with freeze dried strawberries.  Had I had the extra time, I would've gone to Trader Joe's, but I digress...Eventually, I got my hands on some just in time for these cupcakes!

But then in honor of Halloween, I went one step further, making a strawberry syrup to drizzle on top. I thought it would look spookily like blood!  You can skip the syrup entirely, and top them instead with a fresh or freeze dried strawberry slice for the other 11 months of the year.

Ghoulish Strawberry Halloween Cupcakes

I started these cupcakes with a half batch of the best yellow cupcakes ever.

Strawberry Buttercream
From Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients:

1 cup freeze dried strawberries
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 cups confectioners' sugar
3 Tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Salt, to taste (I didn't feel that it was needed, so I skipped it)

Directions:

Using a blender or food processor, process the freeze-dried strawberries into a fine powder.
You should have about a 1/2 cup.
Set aside.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes.
With the mixer on low, add the confectioner's sugar, strawberry powder, cream, and vanilla.
Increase to high speed and beat for 3 full minutes.
If it's too runny or thin, add an additional 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and if too thick add 1 more Tbsp of cream.
Add a pinch of salt if the frosting is too sweet.
Frost cupcakes as desired.

Top with strawberry sauce (below) and bone sprinkles, if desired.

Strawberry Sauce
From The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

2 pounds of strawberries, hulled (I used frozen, unsweetened strawberries, since it's October, and they're super expensive right now)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 lemon, juiced (I didn't have lemon, so I used 1/4 cup water)
A couple drops of red food coloring (optional) -- I used it, since I wanted mine to look "bloody" for these cupcakes

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients (except the food coloring, if using) in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat.
Bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly.
Allow the strawberries to cook for a good 5 minutes, or until the strawberries are very soft (FYI, frozen strawberries take longer than 5 minutes).
Turn off the heat ans use a potato masher to completely smush them to a pureed consistency (I used an immersion blender -- super easy!).

Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer placed over a bowl.
Use a spoon to stir the mixture so the liquid is forced through.
Continue until most of the liquid is in the bowl.
Set aside the pulp, in case you want to add some back into the finished sauce (I skipped this part, since I wanted mine to be super thin for these cupcakes, but would add it in in the future for, say, an ice cream topping).

Skim as much foam off of the sauce as you can.
Pour the skimmed sauce back into the same saucepan and boil again for 3 minutes over medium-high heat.
This is where I added the food coloring.
Skim any more foam that has formed on the surface.
Allow the sauce to cool slightly before pouring it into a pitcher or jar.
Add back a little of the pulp into the sauce if you like the texture, or just leave it plain.

Serve warm over vanilla ice cream, or refrigerate it to thicken and serve it cold.  You can also reheat the sauce after refrigerating.

Or drizzle over strawberry cupcakes for a ghoulish looking treat!

Assemble the cupcakes

Allow the cupcakes to cool.

Pipe the strawberry icing onto the cupcakes.  I used a star-like tip (Ateco 885), since I wanted grooves for the sauce to run through.

Using a piping bag or squeeze bottle, apply the strawberry sauce to the tops of the cupcakes and allow it to run down the grooves in the icing.

Top with small bone sprinkles, if desired.

Additionally, if not Halloween, you can skip the bone sprinkles or the strawberry sauce (but really, why would you?  It's soooo goood!), and instead use a wedge or slice of fresh strawberry, a small strawberry, or a slice of freeze dried strawberry.  

Party popcorn

I'm off from work today, and as is true to form, it's raining.  I could be doing laundry, or cleaning for that matter, but I find myself in the kitchen.  The laundry and cleaning, I keep telling myself (and B!), will get done, eventually.  Yes, definitely in the near future...

But I digress.  See, after a quick trip to barre class and a Target run (they opened one in my neighborhood!), I came home and decided to start playing around with some ideas I had been saving.  Part of my Target trip was for Halloween candy because, well, they have such a good variety!  And while I had my eye on some yummy looking snack mix, I decided to start with something else.

Party popcorn.  Or Halloween party popcorn, as I'm calling this.

Here's the thing.  There are three ingredients.  Five, in my recipe, but frankly that's just because I used a combination of three different sprinkles.  Yes, I know.  Issues.  But still....three ingredients.  It comes together in seconds, and then you have the hard part -- waiting for the chocolate to set up.

And while I waited, I made a (half) second batch.  I swapped in orange candy melts for the white CandiQuik in the previous batch.  I thought about making a bunch of different colors, but I stopped at that, since I black candy melts on hand, as well as bright green.  Maybe later, but I thought the black candy melts could get a little messy.

And then?  Well, ladies and gentlemen, I went a little crazy!  I mixed the two batches together.  Yup, you read that right...And ended up with a perfect Halloween Party Popcorn Mix!

Enjoy!

Halloween Party Popcorn
From She Wears Many Hats

Ingredients:

6-7 ounces (by weight) white candy melts, melted (or sub in your favorite color, or chocolate) -- I used vanilla CandiQuik
8-9 cups popped popcorn, lightly salted
Sprinkles or nonpareils in your favorite color (I used Halloween colored nonpareils - I used a black/orange/white premix, a yellow/orange premix, and some additional white ones)

Directions:

In a large bowl or on a baking sheet lined with wax paper, gently mix the melted chocolate with the popcorn.
Don't be afraid to use your hands -- it worked the best for me!

Sprinkle the sprinkles on before the chocolate hardens.
Gently mix again -- don't be afraid to use those hands!! -- before the chocolate hardens.

I went a little crazy and added some more sprinkles and then remixed.  Because sprinkles make everything better, so more sprinkles make everything even better! :-)

Brownies with milk chocolate chips

I have a favorite brownie recipe.  I found it online.  It's super easy to make and the result is a super fudgy brownie (in my opinion, fudgy brownies are far superior to cakey brownies).  I make them pretty often.

I've also made variations of this brownie. My go-to is to use Dutch process cocoa powder, but it's hard to come by sometimes.  I usually buy it and save it up, so that I always have some on hand for these particular brownie-craving times.  Then I made a coffee/espresso version.  I'm pretty sure there's a peanut butter version floating around out there, too.  Recently I made them for B and his coworkers, but instead of my go-to, I used special dark cocoa powder.  Those were midnight dark and super fudgy (and will be up soon...I know, I know, I'm a little out of order wit my posts)!  

And then for Yom Kippur breakfast, I decided to make some more brownies. A lack of Dutch press cocoa powder and a now-empty container of dark cocoa powder (and none on the shelves when I went to the store) in the kitchen, I turned to boring old regular cocoa powder. I mixed it up a bit with the chips (mostly because I'm a fool and forgot to buy them for this recipe), using 1 cup of mini semisweet chocolate chips and 1 cup of milk chocolate chips.  

Despite what I can only call their pale color (the other two versions yield a way darker brownie), their flavor was still spot on!  Feel free to mix up the combination of chips -- who knows...maybe there will be an all-milk chocolate version up one of these days...

Brownies with Milk Chocolate Chips
Original recipe from Yammie's Noshery

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter
2 1/4 cups of sugar
4 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups of regular cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups of flour
2 cups chocolate chips (for these, I used 1 cup of milk chocolate chips and 1 cup of mini semisweet chocolate chips)

Directions:

Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.  I lined mine with parchment paper and then sprayed it with Pam.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the butter and sugar in a microwave safe bowl.
Heat in the microwave, stirring about every 30 seconds, until the mixture is bubbly and smooth (mine was smooth, but not so bubbly).  You can also do this on the stove.

Add in the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Mix together the cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and flour.  I just sifted it into the butter mixture, in about 3 additions.
Add to the butter mixture, mixing until smooth.
Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 28 minutes.

Halloween nonpareils

I had so much fun making my rainbow nonpareils recently!  So when I decided to start working on some Halloween treats, I decided that Halloween colored nonpareils would be just the thing to get me into the holiday spirit!

You could have so much fun with these!  Mix up the colors of the sprinkles (I had wanted to use a combination of orange, yellow, and white nonpareils but had these instead...so, in true JulieBakes fashion, stay tuned for those soon!), or the chocolates themselves.   Why not try white chocolate or dark chocolate?  Have some leftover candy melts?  Black or orange would work!  And of course, you can always make different sizes, too!

The amounts listed below are rough estimates -- half it, double it, use a bigger tray -- but should just help guide you through the process of making them!

Halloween Nonpariels

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Halloween colored nonpareil sprinkles (mine were black, white, and orange.  Yellow, orange, and white would work nicely, too)

1/2 cup milk chocolate melting wafers

Directions:

Line an 8x8" or 9x9" pan with wax paper.
Gently pour the nonpareil sprinkles into a thin layer at the bottom of the pan.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring between each.
Make sure not to burn the chocolate.
Let the chocolate cool a little so it is not HOT to the touch.

Spoon half of the chocolate into a piping bag.
Cut a small hole at the opening.

Moving quickly but carefully -- be careful to not hit the pan and move the sprinkles -- pipe little (or larger, your call) dots of chocolate onto the sprinkles, leaving a small space between them.

When the entire layer or sprinkles is covered with chocolate dots, carefully place the tray into the fridge.
Let the chocolate harden.

In the mean time, remove all the chocolate from the piping back and place it back into the bowl.

Once the candies are hard, remove them from the sprinkles and place into a ziplock bag or airtight plastic container.
Redistribute the sprinkles into a thin layer, adding more if you need (the sprinkles go a looong way, and I always end up having extras without ever adding any).

Melt the chocolate again
Repeat the steps above until all the chocolate is used up (or, frankly, you get bored...).

Fresh apple cake with honey glaze

Every Rosh Hashana, I debate for a second or two about making a non-apple dessert.  But, alas, I always end up with an apple centered dessert.  Four years ago I made an apple pizza, something I remember distinctly, since it was right after B and I met. But I digress...

This apple cake appealed to me for two reasons.  First off, it has a honey glaze.  Honey.  The other big sweet food for Rosh Hashana.  Apples and honey are used to symbolize the beginning of a sweet new year (choruses of the kids Rosh Hashana song are ringing in my head now...."dip the apples in the honey...have a happy sweet new year"). Secondly, it's a bundt cake.  Bundt cakes are, in my opinion, way easier to transport than a beautiful layer cake. And considering that my apple cake is going from downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn (via a 2.5 mile walk) and then back up to midtown Manhattan, before a train ride to Westchester, I figured a dessert that was less likely to be demolished en route was a nice option. 

The one change I made to the cake was that I cut the oil down and replaced it with some apple sauce.  Given the fact that we'll be eating a super huge meal (my mom's brisket....OMG I'm drooling just thinking about it!), plus the added apple flavor from the apple sauce, I thought that it would be a nice addition!

Paula Deen's Uncle Bob's Fresh Apple Cake
From Food Newtork

Ingredients:

For the Honey Glaze:

1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp milk

For the Apple Cake:

3 cups diced peeled Granny Smith apples, about 2 apples (I needed 2.5 apples)
1 cup lightly toasted chopped walnuts
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (I used 3/4 cups apple sauce and 1/2 cup canola oil)
3 eggs

Directions:

Make the glaze:

Add all the glaze ingredients to a small bowl and stir until smooth.
Set the bowl aside.

Make the cake:

Preheat the oven to 325F.
Lightly grease a bundt or tube pan.  I debated flouring it afterwards but decided against it since the recipe didn't say.  My cake got stuck when I tried taking it out and actually broke.  So I instantly regretted not flouring the pan.  I recommend you do so.

Toast the walnuts.
Let cool.

In a bowl, mix together the apples, walnuts, vanilla, and cinnamon.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Using an electric mixer, beat together the sugar, oil, apple sauce, and eggs in a large bowl.
Add in the dry ingredients.
Beat until completely combined.
Fold in the apple mixture.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until a tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Mine was done after about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  I'd say start watching after an hour.

Allow the cake to fully cool in the pan, about 1 hour.
Turn the cake out onto a plate.

Drizzle the cake with some honey glaze before serving.

The cake can be wrapped tightly and stored in the fridge for 3-5 days.