Happy Little Trees

Due to the Black Friday sales gods, my husband was able to gift me a gorgeous matte purple KitchenAid mixer without selling any organs. I was beyond thrilled to test it out this weekend (I logged about 12 hours on the mixer alone yesterday for holiday baking). How was it compared to my old Walmart mixer, you may or may not have asked? Let me explain it to you like this: it's like that moment when you go to the optometrist and put on glasses for the first time and have that, "Wait, so THIS is what sight is supposed to be like?" moment. Clarity mixed with magic. I didn't realize it wasn't supposed to sound like a freight train was coming through my house when the mixer was on, or that I shouldn't have to hand mix a bit after I turn off the mixer. I'm so happy I could cry. Now, if only I could get into the holiday spirit. Tis the season to be sweaty down here in Florida. I put up Christmas lights last week in shorts and a tank top and still came in drenched in sweat. I felt more like a margarita than an eggnog for sure. I was feeling extra Grinchy since I have jury duty tomorrow, so I thought about scrapping baking altogether, but like any adult around the holidays, I forced myself to pretend to enjoy Christmas until I actually did...all thanks to this classic hand-painted Christmas tree snowscape cake.

Well now that's just adorable.

This cute little cake that in no way represents winter in Florida is a vanilla peppermint cake with peppermint buttercream. It tastes like a candy cane, and it's absolutely perfect. I haven't done too much baking since D deployed, and if you're wondering whether one grown woman can eat an entire cake by herself, I can assure you with no one around to judge me, I eat breakfast cake regularly. Needless to say, this had to be a low-cal bake since I take a slice out of it pretty much every time I walk by the fridge. This recipe will only set you back 289 calories for 12 slices.

Oh hey, super sexy KitchenAid mixer. I see you.

It's a truly simple recipe, and the cakes themselves can be made and frosted in like three hours tops including bake time, even with the hand-painted treescape. To make, you need:

• White cake mix
• 4 egg whites (I am missing an egg in the photo)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 1/4 cup of water (or you can use more milk)
• 1 tsp of peppermint extract (trust me, a little goes a long way)

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch baking pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Mix all the ingredients above in a stand mixer (I am sorry for you if you don't have a KitchenAid because they are glorious) for 2 minutes on medium high. Evenly pour batter into your prepared pans. I had 275 grams of batter in each pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until the rounds pass the toothpick test. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes then turnout onto a cooling rack to fully cool. Be sure you level your cakes before frosting so everything is nice and flat. Bonus, you can eat the cake scraps to tide you over! Small Christmas miracles!

I mean, that mixer looks good from every angle.

 The frosting is also very quick to make and surprisingly, booze free. But go ahead and replace the milk with peppermint schnapps if you can't survive the holidays without alcohol in some form. No one will blame you. For the frosting:

• 4 cups of Swerve confectioner's
• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 3 TBS skim milk or your peppermint booze of choice
• 1 tsp peppermint extract (omit if using peppermint booze)

Ready? Mix it all together until smooth in your awesome, super quiet, luxurious KitchenAid (I am not being paid by the company to say this, but I probably should be). Now, get those painting tools ready so you can get your inner Bob Ross on and paint tons of happy little trees.

Don't forget the sprinkles. I have a feeling Mr. Ross also loved a good sprinkle.

 I picked up star sprinkles, red, white, and green circle sprinkles, and snowflake sprinkles from A.C. Moore because it's going out of business so I figured everything would be on sale. Everything was on sale. Except for the baking tools and accessories. This is my level of luck or lack there of (I am so getting picked for jury duty tomorrow because of it). I also used a Kelly green and a brown gel dye (I didn't use the red, but you can if you want to pipe a border...I was unsure if I had enough frosting to do so). Not pictured but definitely needed are crushed candy canes or peppermint crunch. Last but not least, you will need palette knives to paint.

I always put a hefty amount of frosting into a large bag with a #12 round tip, pictured on the right above, and pipe rounds of frosting in between my layers while assembling my cakes. I didn't take any photos of this since I was delirious on hour 8 of baking, and because I am pretty sure if you're here, you know how to stack a cake. I did, however, take pictures of the fully assembled cake with peppermint crunch sprinkled on top as seen below. Once you have completely covered your cake in frosting, get a little wild and sprinkle that peppermint crunch on top, pressing gently into the frosting. Freeze your cake for 30-45 minutes before painting on it.

I received my third wind after this and was super ready to paint.

I draw like a three year old.

Unlike my buttercream mountain cake, I didn't think freehand Christmas trees were really going to work out too well for me, so I used a toothpick to draw tiny trees on my cake. I had to look outside a few times to be reminded what a proper pine tree looks like because A. I cannot draw and because B. Northwest Florida is absolutely covered in pine trees (yet it's still summer in December anyway). 

My painting palette.

 After covering my cake in the white buttercream and freezing for half an hour, I took a glob of frosting, plopped it on a plate, and dyed it brown, mixing with a palette knife. I took a larger glob of frosting and dyed that Kelly green. I ended up having quite a lot of both colors leftover, so I definitely could have done a border around the top of the cake since I ended up throwing this and some leftover plain frosting out (after I ate most of it with an unused palette knife...I told you, with no one around to judge, it's like a "Cathy" comic in this house).

I really need adult supervision.

I started by using my smallest palette knife to swipe on a brown tree stump, then I used the next size up to swipe on green for my pine trees. I swiped up and to the left to make the right side of the tree, coming back in after each swipe to add more frosting to the back of my palette knife.

I mean, it's definitely a tree, so mission accomplished.

 I swiped up and to the right to complete the left side of the tree. I found it way easier to paint when I put my cake stand on top of a large, flat mixing bowl so it was eye level but stable.

SPRINKLES!

To finish this tree, I added round sprinkles for ornaments and a silver star on top. I lightly dusted the base of the cake board with powdered sugar to look like snow. This will be the only snowfall I experience this winter...

I really miss snow. The real stuff. Powdered sugar's great though.

 I ended up painting several more trees, most of them a lot smaller and shorter and dusted with "snow." I only did one other larger tree with Christmas ornaments on it on the opposite side of the cake from the first tree.

So darling it almost makes my Grinch heart grow.

Remember what I said about freehanding trees earlier? This PERFECT example of a pine tree was the LAST tree I made and the ONLY ONE I freehanded. So, go figure. Now I know to just go freehand when it comes to painting with buttercream. 

It really makes me feel like the holidays are near when I look at this cake. But then I step outside and get very confused because it feels like it's September.

To finish, I added tiny little snowflake sprinkles all around the cake (a great way to cover up any errant green paint). Fun fact! Living the heat-soaked South, this cake is the closest I will get to walking through a winter wonderland this holiday season!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, you are so very yummy.

 I am really digging how this turned out. It's simple but it's cute. It's also extremely delicious. I had never done plain peppermint cake before because I am hugely obsessed with peppermint mixed with chocolate, so I am happy I branched out and tried something different says the woman who lives her life with the assistance of three different planners. The peppermint vanilla cake is very light but packs a good amount of peppermint flavor. It's nice to be able to eat a dessert at Christmas time that doesn't weigh as much as a small child or a fruitcake. I could (and did) eat that peppermint buttercream all on its own and be perfectly satisfied, but pairing it with that airy peppermint vanilla cake is positively divine, so happy birthday, Baby Jesus! I will really use any reason to bake a cake around here... I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I'll see you back here in 2020. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Bold move, putting a cake in front of a mixer that visually stunning...

A Cake That's Dying to be Eaten

I love October. It's the one month of the year I can let my inner Wednesday Addams out, and no one bats an eye because it's totally okay to be a spooky weirdo during Halloween festivities. Needless to say, I wanted to go full on gore and make a cake that was both shocking to look at but also really, really delicious at the same time. Because if you're bold enough to eat something that looks like evidence from a crime scene, you should be rewarded for that level of bravery. I came up with a design last month for my big Halloween week bake that tried out another new decorating technique: the fault line cake ("Fault line cakes. So hot right now." -Mugatu, probably). But it's gotta be a creepy fault line cake because this is me we're talking about here, so the shock bar was set high...

Nothing a little blood and broken glass couldn't help achieve.

Was someone murdered in my kitchen? I'll never tell. Was a cake that was the essence of macbre created in the process? Definitely. Was the evidence eaten? Without a doubt. I hand made those little skulls poking out of my fault line, and both the blood and the glass shards are totally edible. Since I knew this would be my last bake before my husband takes one of his annual government-mandated vacations for a few months, I wanted to make a strawberry cake since that's his favorite. Sweet flavoring aside, I also made the inside of this cake look like a bloody nightmare with the help of some very dark raspberry jam (you could use strawberry instead, it just won't look as creepy, and that's really important to someone who's obsessed with Halloween). What with the jam and the cake, I wanted a subtle frosting, so I made an Ermine frosting. This is by NO means a low cal bake at 415 calories a slice for 12 slices total...those little chocolate skulls are dead last in the low calorie department, and well, every other department because they're skeletons. I am going to break this blog down into a few parts: how to make chocolate skulls, how to make sugar glass, the cake and Ermine frosting recipe, and assembly/decoration. Turn back now if you're afraid of reading. Be warned...

I will use this mold as often as possible.

 So the skulls are actually VERY simple. You just need to find a silicone skull mold from Amazon or a craft store and black and white chocolate melts. Melt half a bag of white chocolate melts according to package directions and pour into a squeeze bottle.

You will want a small pan for this.

 Now pipe in the middle of the skull indentation until the cavity is about 3/4 full. Repeat until all 3 little cavities are filled, then very gently tap your silicone mold on top of a baking sheet until the melted chocolate has been distributed evenly and the skull cavities are all covered. Place this in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Spooky synchronicity: an OCD Halloween lover's paradise.

Once set, take a sheet of Parchment paper and grab a mold. Carefully peel the chocolate out of the mold, placing on the paper, and that's it! Repeat until you have enough to cover your fault line in each color. I made 36 white skulls and 48 black skulls, but had 12 black skulls leftover. I made these like a month ago and placed into a single layer in a Tupperware, added wax paper, then added another layer, etc., until I ran out of skulls. These store great at room temp in a cupboard for months.

The glass is pretty much all sugar which is terrifying.

I made my glass shards two days ahead of time because I had never made my own candy before and wanted plenty of time to screw up. The good news here is that this is pretty much foolproof. You take one cup of water, one cup of sugar (I used real sugar since I knew I was probably not going to eat this part with the rest of the cake), 1/2 cup of corn syrup, and 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar, dump it into a medium sauce pan, and whisk until your arm falls off (seasonally appropriate). Seriously though, you need to bring it to a boil on medium-high heat while whisking pretty continuously until a candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees. This takes about 10-12 minutes, so grab a chair and get comfy. Things will get really, really thick when this magical transition from 260 degrees to 300 degrees takes place in a matter of seconds around the 10 minute mark. 

So shiny and clear you can only see the "well-seasoned" pan I've had for 12 years.

 Generously spray a small baking sheet with cooking spray, then pour your candy mixture into the pan and tilt the pan around to spread the candy evenly. Set this aside to harden at room temp for an hour, then gently cover with foil and place in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

THEN SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!

When you're ready to break it apart, I used a small meat tenderizing mallet to break at random. But I would not break it up until you're actually about to throw it into the cake since the more you handle it, the meltier and stickier it gets. Now that we've got the main decorating components complete, time to get to the good part: the cake.

I actually find the color pink pretty scary, but don't worry, we're dying this blood red.

You can make a raspberry or a red velvet cake if you'd prefer, and it would definitely be the right color and flavor pairing with raspberry jam. I used:

• 1 box strawberry cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• Maroon gel dye
• 3 TBS raspberry jam

Mix the cake, egg whites, applesauce, and skim milk in a stand mixer for 2 minutes on medium-high. Prepare 3 six-inch cake pans with cooking spray and bake even strips and preheat the oven to 350. Once mixed, add in gel dye until you get a deep red. Pour your batter evenly into the prepared pans.

Of course this cake has blood clots. It's HALLOWEEN.

 Take a heaping tablespoon of raspberry or strawberry jam and place a few chunks randomly throughout one pan with cake mix in it. Use a knife to swirl around and break up to look like blood clots because both the inside and outside of a Halloween cake should make you question your sanity and general safety upon consumption. Repeat with the other two pans and bake your cakes at 350 for 25 minutes. When done, keep the cakes in the pan and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then use an angled spatula to ensure no edges are sticking to the sides of the pan before turning each cake round out onto a cooling rack to completely cool off.

It will look like your cake has been shot repeatedly, so you're on your way to achieving maximum gross-out factor.

Be sure to level your cakes once they are cool. I then wrapped mine up in plastic wrap, put into a freezer bag, and froze for a few days before I could get back to work on them. I definitely spent the better part of a few evenings bringing this cake together, but I will sacrifice time for my evil baking proclivities.

Yep, that's flour. And yep, it's going in the frosting.

So Ermine frosting is like the complete flavor opposite of a traditional American buttercream. Where American buttercream is so sweet it's trying to ensure total cavity destruction of your teeth, Ermine frosting is smooth and refined with a hint of sweetness. Ermine frosting knows you're saving the cavities for Trick-or-Treating, and it's fine with that. It has a nice buttery flavor that's complimented with just a slight sweet aftertaste. It's my new favorite frosting because it's not nearly as fickle to make as Swiss meringue buttercream, tastes better, and is super easy to work with when it comes to decorating. Ermine is the traditional red velvet cake frosting, so you've probably had it at some point. It doesn't come together as quickly as an American buttercream, but like most good things, it is worth the effort. To make, you need:

• 1 cup of skim milk
• 5 TBS flour
• 1 cup of Swerve granular
• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 1 TBS CLEAR vanilla
• Splash of almond extract

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the milk, flour, and sugar on medium heat until it starts to come to a boil. You will need to whisk continuously, so between this and the glass shards, my biceps look fabulous. Cake baking exercises are a thing. After about 5-7 minutes of whisking, things will REALLY  start to thicken up...like a paste consistency. At this point, pour your pudding mixture into a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic wrap is touching the top of the mixture to keep a skin from forming. Place in the fridge and let cool for 90 minutes.

Once this mix has cooled down, whip your butter in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment until fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add in the extracts and about 1/3 of the pudding mix, blending well until total incorporated before adding in another 1/3 of the pudding mix, repeating until all the mix has been added.

Now, switch to a whisk attachment, crank up to medium-high, and let the frosting whip up for about 3-5 minutes. It will get very large and very fluffy, and that's when it's ready to roll. If it seems too thin for piping, place it into the freezer for a few minutes to thicken back up. Place 1/3 of the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (I used a #1A) and get ready to make spooky, murdery magic happen.

Pipe a circle around the outside edge of the cake. Then place a tablespoon of jam into a small bowl and mix until runny.

Pour the jam into the circle and spread out evenly.

Then sandwich another cake layer on top of this to make what looks to be the world's most murdery Oreo. Creepy clowns everywhere will be proud.

Repeat with the next layer because "Go big or go home." is also a mentality that works for murder cakes.

Then place the final cake layer on top. I mean, this would work great as a spooky naked cake with the glass shards and more jam blood dripping off the top. But I had big, Winifred Sanderson levels of dark magic I wanted to make happen here, so I carried on with my evil doings.

It all seems so innocent now...Take another 1/3 of the frosting and cover up your crime scene.

 Now, gather up your skulls and get ready to make Jack Skellington proud. Crumb coat your cake with 1/3 of the frosting, and assemble your fault line accents.

I did an alternating pattern of 3 skulls of black then 3 skulls of white.

In some places, a fourth skull might be necessary.

Complete your pattern until you've gone all around the entire cake.

Now, very important witchy magic needs to happen: freeze your cake for 20 minutes. Place the final 1/3 of the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip (I used a #12) and put into the fridge to stay firm while your crumb coat freezes.

The blob!

 To finish the fault line, take the piping bag and pipe globs of frosting around the top and bottom edges of the cake, slightly overlapping the skulls. Use a bench scraper to pass around the outside edges of the cake until totally smooth. Congrats, you've done a fault line cake! Some people paint the edges with gold or silver luster dust, but I saved the sparkly since I wanted a murdery vibe and not a heavenly one.

Just the right amount of skull-popping action.

 Now, it's time to smash the glass and stab your cake! Sorry, I'm not a psychopath, I swear, I'm just really excited about this cake.

Aw yes, optimal spooky almost achieved.

 Do be careful when placing your candy shards into the cake, as they are shards, and they are pointy. I just randomly placed them into the top of my cake before grabbing one final tablespoon of raspberry jam, heating for 15 seconds in the microwave, stirring, and then going full Patrick Bates with the blood splatter.

I think the Addams Family would be big fans.

 Use a small spoon to drip on top of the shards and down the sides of the cake.

This is where raspberry jam works better than strawberry. Check that blood-red action.

A cake buried with secrets...

 Only thing about the skulls that aren't awesome is that they make cutting perfect cake slices virtually impossible, so I wasn't able to get a good photo of the blood clots on the inside of each slice, but when you cut into the cake and the raspberry jam starts to ooze out, it's pure Halloween spooky bliss:

Why yes, I do eat the blood of my enemies.

I am SO happy with how absolutely grotesque this cake turned out to be. I had envisioned it in my head months ago, so to see it turn out exactly like I had pictured was a huge victory for me. But let's talk about the TASTE. Strawberry cake + raspberry jam = why have I never paired these before?! Strawberries are so nice and sweet but those raspberries come in with the tart flavor that really balances everything out. The Ermine frosting really holds it all together by giving a nice buttery aftertaste to everything. And those bites with the skulls in them? Fantastic. It's a whole lot of flavors coming together in this cake, but they all work together extremely well. Not too sweet, not too sour, definitely just right, especially on the spooky scale. While my favorite month of the year winds down, I am going to enjoy this week fully thanks to this murderous little beauty of a cake! Hocus Pocus on Freeform every day doesn't hurt either,  and thanks to the Food Network's nonstop Halloween baking shows, I'm already planning for next October. It's the most wonderful(ly creepy) time of the year! 'Til next time, my fellow eaters.

Stay spooky, friends.

Witchy Woman Bakes Spooky Cupcakes

Let me set the scene for you..it was the sixth day of October, and almost a full week of spooky Halloween excitement filled the kitchen. "Witchy Woman" played in the background while I was cloaked in black, throwing ingredients into my cauldron, getting ready to put on one heck of a spell. Okay, so the cauldron was my stand mixer's bowl, but everything else is accurately on point. I love getting spooky during October, and I knew like any good (or bad) witch, I needed to concoct a brew that would leave its eaters speechless. And so, witches' brew cupcakes made of sinful devil's food chocolate Guinness Stout with poisoned Baileys buttercream frosting were conjured into existence with the help of a little black magic (read: booze).

It's an "eww" to "aww" situation here.

It's okay be be both slightly repulsed while simultaneously charmed by these cauldron cupcakes. I mean, there's bones and eyeballs floating around...no eye of newt or virgin's blood, so the comic elements bring a unique creepy cuteness into play. I had SO MUCH FUN decorating these (full disclosure: I had the Hocus Pocus rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" pretty much on repeat, and there's no way to have a bad time listening to that). It's actually a truly simple bake from start to finish. I knocked these out in under 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon, where the only thing truly terrifying taking place was the tanking of my fantasy football scores. Thankfully I had these delicious cupcakes, rich with chocolate flavor in a way only Guinness can make possible with the sweet bite of Baileys in the buttercream to soothe the pain. It has been a LONG time since I've made my Guinness chocolate cake recipe, so I had to health-ify it and have the updated recipe below. This makes 24 cupcakes for a mere 194 calories a piece, so you're welcome in advance because this is the best chocolate cake recipe to ever exist, and you can't eat just one of these at a time. It's simply not possible.

The only way I'm ingesting Guinness is via dessert.

 I loathe, abhor, detest how Guinness tastes on its own...but in a cake, divine intervention occurs. Trust the baking witch on this one. To make, you need:

• Devil's food cake mix
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 egg whites
• 1 cup of Guinness Stout
• 1/4 cup of skim milk
• Black cupcake liners

Preheat your oven to 350 and mix all your cake ingredients together in a stand mixer on medium high for two minutes while you line two muffin trays with cupcake liners (black is a must because it's simply spookier).

And spooky is the name of the game this month.

I use a cookie scoop to scoop one and a half scoops of batter into each cupcake liner. Liners will be a little over halfway full. Be sure to tap the pans on the counter to even out the batter and release air bubbles. Bake for 16 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick comes out *mostly* clean. This is a very moist recipe, so some crumbs are fine. Let rest in the pan on top of a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Oh yes, you look devilishly delish.

 Remove from the pan and finish cooling completely before frosting. Cupcakes only take about 20 minutes to cool off, so start on your frosting about 15 minutes after you set them out to cool.

My baking Baileys got a workout this weekend.

 Now, this frosting recipe is simple enough, unless you accidentally have an over-generous pour over the mixer and get a bit *too much* Baileys in the mix. I swear this was completely accidental. I was grooving too hard to the music and my tablespoon couldn't handle it. Baileys. Everywhere. To make:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 1 cup of Swerve confectioners
• 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 TBS CLEAR vanilla
• 5 actual TBS of Baileys 
• Lime green gel dye

I used less Swerve this time since it was such a small amount of frosting going onto the cupcakes; I find Swerve actually tastes WAY sweeter than regular powdered sugar (another example of strange black magic), so I wanted to trim calories but not too much at the expense of my taste buds that have started to revolt from overly sweet flavors.

Whip the butter for a couple minutes until fluffy then add in the vanilla, two tablespoons of Baileys, and half the sugars. Blend on low until well mixed, then up the speed a bit. Scrape the bowl before adding in the rest of the sugar and three tablespoons of Baileys. Blend and finish up the frosting by adding in a decent amount of lime green gel dye to get a bright, vivid green.

You know, "Wicked Witch of the West" green.

It was about this time during the frosting mix I noticed something odd out of the corner of my eye. Above the blender floated the head of a werewolf...anxiously trying to claw her way to the counter to steal my witches' brew...

Oh hey there, hell hound.

The back of our couch is just beyond the kitchen wall, and apparently, Freyja really liked the way all that boozy Baileys frosting smelled, so she had to jump up there to peek around the corner and check it out for herself. I'm glad I already had my camera out, or I would have been laughing too hard to capture this before she got down (back of the couch is a no-fly zone for the dogs).

My other witching elements.

I also grabbed eye ball sprinkles and a creepy sprinkles mix (both by Wilton and on their website or Amazon or at most craft stores--our A.C. Moore had them). The tips I used for decoration were all round tips: a #12, #5, and #3. I placed half my frosting into a bag fitted with the #12 tip and the other half into a bag with a coupler so I could switch between the #5 and #3 tips as needed.

I started off by piping a small circle of frosting as the base with my #12 tip.

Then I came in with the #5 tip and placed random dots all over the top of this to make large-looking bubbles.

Then I switched out tips on my coupler to the #3 to make tiny little bubbles overlapping the bigger bubbles and cascading down the side of the cupcake/out of the cauldron.

Then I used my food tweezers to place bones, eyeballs, and green sprinkles on top of the cakes for a finishing touch.

NOTHING is finished without sprinkles, people. It's a magical element all baking witches use.

Guys, these are so stinkin' grossly cute and so unbelievably easy to make, that you just HAVE to try it out for yourself to add to the Halloween party dessert table. I would say school Fall Festival, but only if you can share with the teachers and not the students. Those teachers need that Baileys frosting in a way you'll never truly understand unless you yourself are also an educator.

I have an *eye* for decorating.

I am having a blast with these Halloween bakes. I'll be back with one more to top them all before the end of the month. Until then, I froze half of these cupcakes to savor at a later date. I'd keep these chilled in the fridge until about 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, then set out on the counter to soften up just a bit. Something insane happens at close to room temp with that Guinness chocolate cake and that Baileys buttercream frosting. These are my favorite two alcohols to pair together for that reason. The Guinness brings out the chocolate and the Baileys compliments this so well that it's practically, well, magic. The fact that these little babies also look like creepy cauldrons full of evil, bubbling potion is literally the icing on the (cup)cake. Stay spooky, my friends. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?