Happy Halloween!

Well today is the day! The day of my favorite Holiday!! I'm so glad it's finally here because now I can finally get back into my daily routine. Costumes are done and have been worn to parties. Now I can clean up my material and paint mess. I have successfully made a pie (HAD to be homemade) and a decorated cake (Pacen's 4-H group asked all the parents to make these) and will deliver them to the Fairgrounds during my lunch break for tonight's Halloween Carnival. Hopefully I am able to deliver them in tact. I have nightmares of dropping them.

I am planning on going to the carnival even though Pacen won't be with me. The kids didn't have school today due to an in-service/work day so he is in Harrison with my parents. He's planning on going trick-or-treating with his H-town friends. It will feel so weird not going with him.

Would you like to see our costumes and such? Oh come now, of course you do! :)

Quinn and I.  We won 2nd place!!!  Our parents beat us!  What the hell?!  :)

My little Harry Potter!  I think Pace looks so much like him!  He also looks a little frazzled...maybe he just got done fighting Lord Voldemort ... Umm, I mean "he-who-must-not-be-named".

Pacen's class.  I just now noticed Pedro!  Haha!  I knew there was a Napolean Dynamite, but somehow I missed Pedro!  Wow, I'm so observant.  :)

Now do you want to see the pie and cake I made?  No?  Well, tough.  If you don't want to see them then just close this window right now.  :)

I got the idea for the crust here.  There are a couple other crust tutorials there too so go check it out!

Do you like my little Jack-o-lantern?  :)

Before I show you my cake you must know this:  this cake is going to be in a contest.  Whether I like it or not.  Since it's going to be in a contest and since I'm freakishly competitive I had to make something that I knew would be different from everyone else's cakes.  Something that had a small chance of winning a prize.  I turned to Cake Central for some inspiration.  Oh boy was I inspired!!!  By many cakes.  Too bad I didn't have time to attempt them all.  I finally decided to make the Ouija board cake based on this cake.  I bow down to your awesomeness AmberStar1066!  Your Ouija board kicks my Ouija board's ass!  I don't know why I didn't attempt bottom corners like those! Well, here she is:

My cake.  My off-centered Ouija board cake.  My off-centered, not-very-detailed-bottom-corners Ouija board cake.  :)  Do you think I have any chance of winning?  Even a small prize?  *sigh*  I need to quit being so damn competitive.  :)  Psssshhhhht.  Yeah right. 

Well, if you want to know how I made this cake here are a bit of instruction: I  printed off a picture of a Ouija board and taped it under some wax paper.  I then piped melted chocolate on the letters and numbers and transferred them to the cake, which is two 9x9 square cakes covered in Cream Cheese Frosting (tinted light brown).  I dusted some cocoa powder over the cake like AmberStar1066 did to give it the "aged" look.   I free-hand piped the corners.  The bottom corners of real Ouija boards are very...ummmmm...cluttered?  Is that the word I'm looking for?  Detailed?  Anyway, I knew I couldn't recreate them very well so I just did some lines.  I guess tonight I'll get to see my "competition".  :) 

Well, I hope you all have a spooktacular Halloween!!!  Be safe and have fun!!

"Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, 'Tonight is Halloween!'" ~ Dexter Kozen

Whoopie Pies

Lately I've been seeing Whoopie Pies all over the internet.  I don't know as I've ever had a Whoopie Pie.  Well, my interest was piqued and I had the perfect occasion to make these delectable looking mounds of fat and calories.  Pacen had a 4-H meeting coming up and I had volunteered to make cookies or brownies or what have you.  So, I decided to try my hand at Whoopie Pies.  I saw a recipe on Little Miss Momma  using a cake mix.  Well, I decided to try making them from scratch. Yes, I like to live on the edge.

My search for a "from scratch" Whoopie Pie recipe was on!  I typed "Whoopie Pie recipe" in Yahoo!  The option of "best whoopie pie recipe" came up so I thought, "Why not?  Why not make the BEST Whoopie Pie that can possibly be made?"  So I clicked and I clicked again AND I clicked once more.  Here is the recipe I decided to use.  Since I had many children to provide a delectable dessert to, I decided to double the recipe.  Plus I had a 13 oz jar of marshmallow creme on hand instead of a 7 oz, so it only made sense to double the recipe.

I mixed and mixed and when I was done mixing the concoction in the bowl looked just like a thick cake batter.  Maybe it would've been better and cheaper to go with Little Miss Momma's recipe.  Hmmmmm.  We'll soon decide.

When I started dumping mounds of batter on my cookie sheets I was making them rather small.  Then I looked the clock and though, "Crap!  It's past my bedtime and I don't want to be up all night making these things."  So I started dumping big ol' dollops of batter.  When they came out of the oven they looked like the tops of cupcakes.  Hmmmm.  Still thinking the other recipe might've been the better choice since this recipe seemed no different than a cake mix...just more difficult.

Once cooled, I started spreading the filling on the little cakes.  I started out putting just a little and then I decided they needed more.  I went back to the ones with little filling and pried them apart to add more.  They were then oozing with marshmallow-y goodness! 

In traditional "Brooke style" I had to try one before I allowed them to leave my house and be ingested by a bunch of kids, lest they be nasty!  I do not ever want anyone to eat anything I've made and think, "Good Lord!  WHAT is this crap?!  It's so gross!"  I almost always try food before I let anyone else try it, just for that reason. 

I obviously chose one with less filling.  Like I need the extra calories!

So do you want to know my verdict on these supposed "best" Whoopie Pies?  I was not impressed.  Not at all.  There is no way these are the best Whoopie Pies!  No way!  If I decide to make them again I will try Little Miss Momma's recipe.  I assumed the kids liked them though because both pans were completely empty!  I called Pacen to ask him what the kids thought.  He told me he didn't really care for them, but the rest of the kids thought they were great...maybe slightly too big though.  Yup, that settles it.  Next time I'm using a different recipe.

"You can say this for ready-mixes - the next generation isn't going to have any trouble making pies exactly like mother used to make" ~ Earl Wilson