Halloween Baking

Just to mix things up, sometimes it's nice to try something new. Holidays are good times for experimenting, so when Wayne decided to enter the Halloween dessert contest at work, we turned to Pinterest for ideas and he chose these Peanut Butter Spider Cookies. To make sure they wouldn't be a Pinterest fail, I tried them ahead of time. The reaction of both of my visiting teachers, along with a couple of other people I shared them with, proved that they had the appropriate cuteness factor. They tasted delicious as well, and Wayne brought home the first place prize!  

Prize Winning Spider Cookies

These are really just a process. Make your favorite Peanut Butter Cookie dough. Roll into balls and bake as directed. While baking, unwrap mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. When the cookies come out of the oven, gently press a Reese's upside down on each cookie. Attach edible candy eyes just a few minutes later when the chocolate has melted a bit. Then let cool thoroughly. Pipe on the legs using a tiny frosting tip and black frosting. I discovered Wilton's black food color paste really does turn chocolate frosting black. That's it!

Spooky Cupcakes

For our contribution to the dessert table at our ward's Fall Festival, I tried a couple of other ideas I had pinned earlier. After baking ordinary chocolate cupcakes, I frosted some of them with black frosting, sprinkled black sugar (found in the Wilton aisle) on top and pressed in a couple of M&M's for eyes. On the others I piped white frosting strips (using a flat frosting tip) before adding M&M eyes. I thought they turned out perfectly, and they were actually quite easy to do.

You can read about a couple of other treats we tried this year here.