Aaahh!!! Real (Tasty) Monsters

The witch is back! Oh boy, it's been a real adventure since my last blog in August. We moved back out to New Mexico, driving cross country from Florida with two spazzy dogs (and sometimes two spazzy humans). After waiting almost 20 days without 98% of our belongings, our home goods finally got delivered which means BAKETOBER HAS COMMENCED! I was getting downright twitchy not being able to bake (and more over, not being able to eat said baked goods).  But I am happy to say that I'm not going to miss a single week of baking in October. I'm coming out frighting.

It's technically eye candy.

I know, they're absolutely awful, but that's kind of the point. I mean, I am a little rusty since it's been a couple months, so give a ghoul a break. But they are each delightful (or frightful) in their own weird little monstery way. And they are absolutely delish--it's a black cherry flavored cupcake with cream cheese frosting, and they are so yummy I have to eat them two at a time. I'm just glad they can't actually scream while I'm scarfing them down. And boo-lieve it or not, these terrifying little babies are only 142 calories a monstercake (recipe makes 18 total). They are so easy and so much fun to make, and they have me feeling all sorts of spooky and happy.

I may be blonde, but otherwise, I am Wednesday Addams.

The recipe itself is incredibly simple. I've done black velvet, Black Forest, most of the creepy flavors you can come up with for Halloween, but these just might be my new favorite. All you need is:

• 1 box of yellow or white cake mix (I used Whole Foods gluten free yellow cake mix)
• 1/2 cup (111 grams) of unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup of skim or fat free milk
• 1/4 cup (79 grams) of egg whites or 2 whole eggs
• I box of sugar free black cherry Jell-o mix (10 grams of Jell-o powder) 

 Preheat your oven to 350 and line a couple muffin tins with cupcake wrappers (obviously, they need to be spooky to be seasonally appropriate). Mix together everything else on medium-high in a stand mixer for two minutes. I used a cookie scoop to plop one and a half scoops of batter into each cupcake wrapper. 

New kitchen counters and cabinets are giving this ghastly girl life.

I baked for 20 minutes...which, still learning my new oven here, was probably 2 minutes too long. Start checking for doneness with a toothpick around 18 minutes. Once a toothpick comes out clean, place your tins on top of cooling racks.

These wrappers are giving off Pugsley Addams vibes. Here for it.

After 10 minutes, remove the cupcakes from the tins and let cool completely before frosting. Things will be very grotesque, and not in a good way, if you don't let these cool first.

Don't waste cream cheese frosting...that's a cardinal baking sin.

To make the cream cheese frosting, all you need is:

• 8 ounces of 1/3 the fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup (112 grams) reduced fat butter or spread (leave cold)
• 2-3 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit sweetener or regular powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

I had SO MUCH leftover frosting, and I used 3 cups of Lakanto. I'd recommend only 2 cups since 18 cupcakes don't need a ton of frosting. I froze half to use later for scary confections, so I'll probably thank myself for this next weekend. 

Start by whipping the cream cheese and butter together on medium-high in a stand mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in your sugar/monkfruit and vanilla, blending on low until things start to come together, then switch to medium-high until well blended.

SPOOKY SPRINKLES™ RETURN!

So, I triple checked all my gel dyes before packing them up...and yet, the black still somehow managed to explode all over the bag it was in (Florida is nearly below sea level...give it time, but now we're up at 4,200 ft elevation, so things got very balloon-y). After cleaning all my bottles and dying my hands various shades of the rainbow, I managed to salvage all my dyes in what I'm referring to as a Halloween Miracle. 

Is there a Patron Saint of Halloween Baking? If so, they're my new favorite.

 I used orange, bright blue, bright purple, and lime green dyes for my monsters. I also kept a portion of frosting plain white for monster fangs. Other things you'll need include Oreo's for mouths, eyeball sprinkles (what do you mean you don't have these on hand already? What are you? Normal?!), various piping tips (open star, three star, basket weave, grass tip for hair, etc.). I pretty much used every tip I have to make random monsters. Remember, they're monsters, not models, we don't expect perfection, we expect scarefection.

It would not be a Halloween post without a knife. Ghostface and Jason Voorhees would be proud.

The absolute best way to cut an Oreo in half, surprisingly, is not with one's own mouth. Did I test this theory? Yes. About 6 six times. Was I sad it didn't work? No, because you can't be sad when you're full of gluten free Oreo's. Instead, I split an Oreo in half, picked out a serrated knife, and very, very slowly, with the meticulous persistence of a psycho murderer, sawed through until two clean, even pieces remained. And that, my friends, are how monster mouths are made, and how a serial killer may or may not have been born.

I mean, at least the monster looks happy about it.

I used a #2 round tip to pipe various fangs, buck teeth, and tiny teefs onto each Oreo half for my monster mouths. Your imagination allows for endless possibilities here. I then used a grass tip to pipe hair on several monsters, pictured above. On others I used open star tips to pipe stars or blobs, on others I used basket weave tips to create long tentacles. Truly, this is all up to how creative you feel like getting.

This is Peter. According to his Monster Match profile, he likes long walks on the beach, eating small children, and prefers robust red wines.

I did about 4 monsters of each color, tried piping some colors together, and pretty much just had a ball with it. I hadn't baked in well over a month, so I got busy having fun and totally did not take photos of each different version until I was done...

It's a field of screams.

Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me.

I very much so had to make a Mike Wazowski monstercake because he is my all-time favorite monster. I also made his apparently inbred three-eyed cousin and tiny pupil-ed sibling.

Don't worry, Sully was kinda there.

I used a grass tip with purple and later blue to make a tiny, hairy rendition of Sully, because Mike needs his friend, obviously. Is she serious? Will we ever know? I'm just saying, for a proper Scare Floor, you need both characters.

Oh hey there, my slightly unhinged orange friends.

These all gave me Animal from Sesame Street vibes...especially the dude in the back. I bet he can really play the heck out of a drum set.

Gotta love those Purple People Eaters.

Are they creepy in a fun way? You bet. So, my mission was accomplished on that front. But the FLAVOR...oh man, something as simple as adding a packet of Jell-o to this recipe took it to the next level. You get that amazing black cherry flavor, and it is so good with that slight tang of cream cheese frosting. If you wanted to make them even spookier, you could add a few drops of red and a drop of black food coloring to the mix to make the cupcakes look like monster blood or guts when you bite into them. You're welcome. That's what I'm here for, to deliver gross ways to eat baked goods in October.

I scream, you scream, we all scream, everyone's screaming...

For more cupcakes. I am not kidding, these are so good, even my husband that doesn't really like dessert has been eating them two at a time as well. This definitely makes me feel like less of a glutton then when I'm double-fisting cupcakes by myself...but I do realize this means we're gonna run out of monstercakes really fast, so I'll be back at it again this weekend, baking up a terrifying storm of Halloween horrors. Now that this basic witch has her baking tools back, Spooktober dessert possibilities are endless. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

A scarytale ending, indeed.