Halloween Cake Pops

I made these for Bean's class Halloween party.  The recipe makes 45-50 cake pops so we had a few leftover for the family.  I was glad too because these things are so good! They do take some time to make and decorate and the candy coating takes some time to get use to using. Just be patient and don't forget to tap the excess candy coating off the cake ball. I forgot to do that for the first few and it really used up a lot of the chocolate.

Cake Pops

• 1 box cake mix of your choice. (I used Devil's Food.)
  
• 1 container of ready-made icing. (I used Cream Cheese.) 
• Candy Melts or Chocolate Bark 
• Waxed paper

Directions:

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting.
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50)
4. Chill for several hours. (or put in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.)
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Dip ends of sticks in the melted chocolate then insert into cake ball.  Let the chocolate harden a bit.
7. Dip pops in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm or insert into a Styrofoam block (make sure you tap the stick on the edge of the bowl gently to remove some of the excess chocolate)

For more cake pop inspiration check out these sites:
Bakerella's Red Velvet Cake Balls
The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella’s Signature Cupcake Pops
The Recipe Girl's Pumpkin Cake Pops

Halloween Cake Pops

Halloween Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

These are the best sugar cookies for rolling & cutting.  I love the fact that I don't have to chill the dough too.  I use this dough all through the year for making cut-out sugar cookies.  It's not an overly sweet dough so after frosting your teeth won't ache from sugar overload either.  It's also makes a nice sturdy cookie to decorate. I need to work on my decorating skills.  I really want to learn to decorate cookies with Royal Icing.  Maybe I can try it out with Christmas cookies.

Here is the recipe so you can try making some yourself.

Soft Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup margarine or shortening
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup milk or buttermilk
• 5 cups flour

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Cream together margarine and sugar in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl mix salt, nutmeg, baking powder and flour together. Add to sugar & margarine mixture, alternating with buttermilk. Mix throughly.
• Do not use flour to roll out (I place between 2 sheets of parchment paper). Cut out cookies with cookie cutter and bake for 8-10 minutes

I frosted these with store bought cream cheese frosting & used chocolate chips for the eyes. You can certainly make your own frosting if you would like.

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Halloween Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

Candy Corn Cookies

I made these cookies using a sugar cookie dough recipe.  I replaced some of the sugar with honey in hopes of giving it a real candy corn flavor.  They still tasted like sugar cookies though and the dough really browned up quickly due to the addition of honey.  I used gel coloring to dye the cookie dough orange and yellow.  I'm really not going to bother giving you my whole recipe for these since I didn't like the way they turned out this time.  If I make them again I will either follow the directions on the Betty Crocker website or I'll leave out the honey and use a sweet sugar cookie dough recipe.

Candy Corn Cookies

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Carving pumpkins or making pumpkin puree? Don't throw out those seeds!  This is the best part of the pumpkin if you ask me. :)  There is a trick to getting your pumpkin seeds to be salty boil the seeds in salted water first, and then toast them in the oven.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

• One medium sized pumpkin
• Salt
• Olive oil

Directioms

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut open the pumpkin and use a strong metal spoon to scoop out the insides.Separate the seeds from the stringy core. Rinse the seeds.
2. In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups of water to every half cup of seeds. Add a half tablespoon of salt for every cup of water (more if you like your seeds saltier). Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
3. Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 10-20 minutes. When browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack. Let the seeds cool all the way down before eating. Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Halloween Caramel Corn

It wouldn't be Halloween at our house without caramel corn (or Christmas for that matter). I love making this. Something about the whole process of making the caramel and smelling the caramel corn cook that is so yummy.  You can add peanuts or anything else you like to this, we like it as plain ol'caramel corn though.

Caramel Corn

Ingredients

• 7 quarts plain popped popcorn
• 2 cups dry roasted peanuts (optional)
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place the popped popcorn into two shallow greased baking pans. You may use roasting pans, jelly roll pans, or disposable roasting pans. Add the peanuts to the popped corn if using. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, margarine and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring enough to blend. Once the mixture begins to boil, boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly.
3. Remove from the heat, and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. The mixture will be light and foamy. Immediately pour over the popcorn in the pans, and stir to coat. Don't worry too much at this point about getting all of the corn coated.
4. Bake for 1 hour, removing the pans, and giving them each a good stir every 15 minutes. Line the counter top with waxed paper. Dump the corn out onto the waxed paper and separate the pieces.Allow to cool completely, then store in airtight containers or resealable bags.

Halloween Caramel Corn