Time to Get Spooky

I spent Sunday morning putting up Halloween decorations outside the house while sweating profusely because it was 90 degrees with over 75% humidity at 9:30 a.m. I was determined to at least make the house look spooky even if it doesn't feel spooky outside...really, it feels *terrifying* outside because it should not still be over 90, even in Florida, when it's October. Shortly after I finished putting up outside Halloween decor, I went for a swim in our pool...Fall is weird in the South. But heat be damned (seriously), I was in the spooky spirit, so I decided it was time for the first creepy Halloween bake as well. Derek bought me a mini skull cake pan for my birthday back in JANUARY, and in what I consider to be the greatest restraint I have ever shown in my life, I waited until September 30 to use it. I honestly couldn't come up with another holiday where skull cakes would be an appropriate bake before October, but know I was tempted to try leprechaun skulls for St. Patrick's Day or Founding Father's president skulls for July 4th. Be glad I opted to wait until October.

Especially since there's an oozing brain aspect.

Oh yes, I should probably warn anyone with a weak gag reflex that these are red velvet skull cakes oozing with bloody brains cheesecake filling and the most adorably creepy M&M eyes. My bad...the spooky spirit just carries me away. I am a sucker for a good lava cake, and I had never attempted a no-bake cheesecake filling as my lava, but I am extremely happy to report that it works excellently as a lava ooze. And red velvet + cream cheese anything = transcendental dessert experience. I am glad these were not the exception to that rule because even as grotesquely awesome as they look, I need my cake to taste like heaven, not hell. I ended up with 10 mini skulls and leftover cheesecake bombs (a flavor explosion), and one delightfully macabre little skull will only set you back 250 calories. All things are possible when you're filled with the Spirit of Halloween.

And sugar-free everything.

This is an INSANELY easy recipe, you just need to make the cheesecake filling several hours ahead of time so it can freeze. So start by putting together:

• 8 ounces 1/3 fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of Swerve granular
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 ounces Cool Whip Free
• Red and black gel dyes 

Mix together the cream cheese and Swerve until completely blended, 2 minutes. Add in the extract and Cool Whip and fold in on low. Now, because I forgot I used twelve bottles of red gel dye for Derek's lumberjack birthday cake, I had to use a combo of red food coloring and black gel dye to achieve a maroon-purple brain matter combo color. Mix in on low then set your mixing bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up the batter.

The leftover cheesecake bombs have been making snack time a real joy this week.

 Now, line a small tray with nonstick paper and grab a cookie scoop. Scoop little mounds of the filling onto the sheet until you have 12 bombs. I only needed 9 but this was because I used too much batter in my first round of cakes...I had never used this pan before and wasn't totally sure how full it needed to be, so some of my skulls are huge (must have had large egos in their mortal life). Now, place these in the freezer until completely frozen. I left these covered in plastic wrap overnight.

Also could be Terminator skulls.

THIS PAN has made my spookiest baking dreams come true. Hefty price tag, but it is a solid piece of construction and will probably outlive me.

Prepping it takes the longest time out of any other aspect of this recipe.

 The instructions that came with the pan specifically state regular Pam won't do for these details, so either a cooking spray with flour in it or prep the pan the old fashioned way: with so much Crisco or butter it'll never truly be grease-free again. I used one of my food-designated paint brushes to get into all the nooks and crannies of the pan, ensuring each little crevice had more Crisco than it could possibly really need.

Not dirt. I'm not that authentically creepy.

Then I dusted this with cocoa. You could use flour, but that would lighten the cakes. So if you want a white cake + extra white coating, using flour. I opted for cocoa powder on some and dark cocoa powder on another batch to have super deep shades of reddish black. Now, on to the cake!

I had to settle for Duncan. Betty was missing on the grocery shelf.

For the cake, you need:

• 1 box red velvet mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk

Preheat your oven to 350 and dump your ingredients in a stand mixer. Blend on low for 30 seconds then switch to medium-high for 2 minutes. Once everything is gelled together, grab a liquid measuring cup and pour some of the batter into it. Fill each skull a little over halfway full, then go grab those frozen cheesecake bombs.

Carefully place into the center of the skull.

Then use a small spatula to cover up the filling completely.

 I baked these for 25 minutes and they were cooked to perfection. This first batch was wayyyyy too full, so my cheesecake filling oozed out a bit and some skulls were quite large.

Ugh, but it still looked like it was going to be nightmare fuel when I took them out of the pan (I mean that in a good way).

I let them rest in the pan for 10 minutes before placing a cooling rack on top of them and inverting the pan. I left everything like this for another 5 minutes to let things cool, de-puff, and release from the pan on their own.

I was squealing with glee at this point while chanting, "So spooky," repeatedly. This is probably the most jovial I've been since, well, last Halloween.

Pre-double-chin trimming.

 I let these cool completely on cooling racks while I washed out my pan, greased and added cocoa again, and then used the rest of my cake batter and cheesecake bombs to cook the next batch. Once cooled, I trimmed the little excess borders to thin out the skulls. I had originally intended to use candy melts to coat some of these white and others black, but I didn't like how much detail got lost under the candy melts, so I only made three with coating.

Peanut butter M&M's are my new obsession, btw.

If you want to coat them anyway, I used about half a cup of white candy melts with 2 TBS of skim milk melted together for 1 minute in the microwave on 50% power. I whisked like crazy until smooth and let it rest 5 minutes before dumping into a liquid measuring cup and pouring ganache over the skulls.

Meh.

It doesn't look terrible, but it doesn't look scary enough either. Maybe if I hadn't thinned out the ganache with milk and just used the candy melts, but that's a problem for next year. The eyes and nose sockets held on to way too much ganache as well, so the M&M's wouldnt really fit into the eye sockets, ruining my plans to make things creepy.

No worries though, they're perfectly ghastly without ganache.

 I placed different colors of M&M's special Ghoul Mix into each skull's eye sockets, and presto, cakes that would scare small children! A crowning achievement in my opinion.

I thought about naming them, but then I wouldn't want to eat them.

Ideally, you want to serve these right away while the cheesecake filling inside is still hot and liquid. If you need to, simply pop them into the microwave for 20 seconds to heat the cheesecake bombs back up into lava status. You can also forgo the M&M's and just dust with powdered sugar to serve quickly as well. I went with M&M's because I'm told they only melt in your mouth, and not in your skull cake's eye sockets. This was indeed factual.

The best brains I've ever eaten.

I am so giddy these all came out of the pan in one piece, and even happier the lava action is so ghoulish and ghastly. The gross-out factor is something I go full tilt with during Halloween, so it's the one time of the year pretty gorgeous gets the boot for pretty gnarly. Since we're not huge fans of super sweet frosting in my house, having these plain red velvet cakes filled with cheesecake bombs is absolutely the proper amount of sweetness. The cake is nice and mildly chocolatey and the cheesecake is smooth and creamy. It's going to be tricky not to eat three of these at a time, but I'll manage...mostly because I still have a full bag of peanut butter M&M's which I did not know were a thing, and now I can't live my life without them. I am looking forward to fall temps EVENTUALLY showing up in Florida, but until then, my kitchen is ground zero for all things terrifying and delicious. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Stare long enough,and they'll steal your soul...

A Mountain of a Cake

I live in a state full of beautiful sandy beaches (I also live in a state of denial, but that's a whole different blog post)...the ocean is a gorgeous shade of emerald, and the sand is pure white. Sounds like paradise, right? Well, I'm sure it is, if you're a beach person (I refer to them as 'basic beaches'). I, however, am a mountain person. I have a body made for flannel and awkwardly long feet that only appear normal in size in boots. I love to watch the sun cascade over the mountains in the morning for a few moments of what feels like magical, limitless possibilities. The air is crisp, the outdoor adventures are awesome, and being in the mountains is the only place I can truly consider myself optimistic (see, without all that humidity, I have *great* hair days, and that makes any woman happier than usual). After our August trip to Portland, trekking through the Columbia River Gorge and generally enjoying an active, significantly cooler paradise, I was inspired to try something new. I know, me, true lover of routine. See, the mountains really do make me an adventurous little thrill seeker. I had been studying Instagram and YouTube videos of cakes decorated with palette knives and painted buttercream for ages. I knew it was finally time to go for it and create a buttercream painted cake as an homage to my preferred outdoor scenery. I mean, most of the planet's surface is covered in water. Beaches-schmeaches. Gimme those mountains!

I was bear-y excited how this turned out. Sorry. I made an edible chocolate bear, so this pun was going to happen eventually.

 

I mean, you can tell they're mountains, so I feel like for my first attempt, not too bad. I'm certainly no Bob Ross. I wasn't painting happy little trees...more like demented little shrubs, but still. The cake itself was also another foray into adventure, and what a delicious treat that ended up being. It's a caramel cake with caramel buttercream because fall is close, but not "pumpkin everything" close. It's the right amount of sweet caramel notes paired with buttery yellow cake, and it leaves a nice lingering taste that makes me think of Michigan cider mills and delicious caramel apple cider. Then I remember it's still 95 degrees outside and the dream shatters, but in that moment, I am in pure Autumnal bliss. And for only 324 calories a slice for 12 slices, no guilt to be found anywhere!

And super easy to throw together.

 As always, doctoring a box cake mix and turning it into something bakery-counter worthy is not difficult. For this scrumptious caramel cake, you need:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 3 TBS caramel sauce (could also use dulce de leche, trying this next time)
• 1 tsp caramel extract

I made a maple cake not long ago that required, obviously, maple syrup; however, this much stickiness made the cake very delicate. It was a 9x13 sheet cake, so I didn't need it to be strong enough to hold up several layers. But this cake needed to be able to withstand the weight of multiple layers, so instead of using a 1/2 a cup of caramel sauce, I swapped in caramel extract to taste to get the right amount of caramel flavor while keeping the cake dense enough for stacking.

She's a tall one, alright.

Preheat your oven to 350, add all ingredients to your stand mixer, and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Turn batter into three 6-inch rounds that have been well greased with cooking spray. Bake for 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let these rest in the pans on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before turning out on to the racks to cool completely. Level your cakes and freeze for a few hours. I wrapped mine in plastic wrap, placed in a Ziplock, and froze overnight.

Ah butter, basic element of all things delicious.

The frosting is incredibly simple to throw together as well. Once your cakes are frozen, you'll need the following for frosting:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 2 cups of Swerve confectioners
• 1.5 TBS of caramel extract
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 TBS skim milk (could totally go for Baileys Salted Caramel here if you do NOT need a pure white frosting, but I did, so..sadly Baileys free)

Blend the butter until fluffy and silky looking, then add in 2 cups of powdered sugar, the extract, and the vanilla. Blend, scrape the bowl, and add in the Swerve and milk. Mix well until everything is incorporated. I ended up with 26 ounces of frosting, but painting with buttercream surprisingly doesn't use much frosting, so I had a little over 8 ounces leftover (totes putting the leftovers on top of a waffle at some point this week).

Smoooooth.

I place my cake layers face down, use a piping bag full of frosting with a #12 round tip, slather a few circles on top of a layer, smooth, add another layer, and repeat until all my cake rounds are assembled and the top of the cake is frosted. I refill my bag and pipe around the cake to create a nice thick layer that I then smooth out with a small angled spatula first, then come in with a bench scraper for about 7-8 passes, removing excess frosting with each pass, cleaning my bench scraper, and going again until I have a completely smooth surface. It sounds like way more work than it is, and you don't even have to freeze for 15 minutes and come back in and smooth out with the paper towel trick because the thick layer of frosting you pipe on first helps cover up any weird or uneveness, and the scraper takes care of the rest. Now, freeze this for at least an hour. Painting on the buttercream will tear the frosting layer up if it isn't frozen. I froze for 3 hours (the cake. Not me. I melted in Florida heat while waiting).

And I made a tiny bear friend.

While the cake is freezing, you can make your bear topper by tracing out an outline of a bear on Parchment paper, flipping it over, and melting a few chocolate melts in your preferred color by following package instructions. Place your melts into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and let cool for 5 minutes.

I used a #3 tip to trace my outline.

And then a #5 tip to flood/fill in the rest.

I used a toothpick to blend everything together. I set him aside to firm up for a half hour on the counter. Then I got even artsy-ier.

Behold, my palette knives!

I ordered a set of palette knives off Amazon. Was not remotely sure what I was looking for, but I went for it, and these worked out decently. I only used #1 and #3, and honestly, I needed one that was even smaller than #1 in some places. I knew I wanted light blue mountains, blue mountains, dark navy mountains, green trees, and rock candy accents, but not surprisingly, I have amassed all these things thanks to this never-ending sweet tooth and desire to bake.

My painter's palette was tasty.

I dropped a few dollops of frosting onto a large plate and mixed my colors with the palette knife. One drop sky blue in one, several drops blue in another, and several drops navy in a third. I also kept some plain white for snow, and later on I added green to that to create trees. I practiced maneuvering the knives on some Parchment for a bit before going for broke on the cake. They're pretty easy to handle, but since the cake was frozen, I had to work quickly to paint because the buttercream I was using to paint chilled and firmed up very quickly on the cold cake.

I started with the light blue and made my tallest mountains first.

 You just need to apply a smattering of buttercream to the back of the palette knife and softly paint it on the side of the cake. I used the larger knife for these mountains. I went with mountains for my first attempt because they're large, not uniformly shaped, and easier than flowers for sure. Once I had randomly smattered my first range of mountains, I froze the cake for 30 minutes.

Then I came back in with my blue buttercream.

 I used the smallest knife for my next range, and once finished with that, I cleaned my knife and came back in to paint snow caps on my tallest mountains with the white buttercream. I froze this for another 30 minutes.

I finished my mountain-scape with navy blue.

 The thing I liked best about this (aside from the fact that I was seated comfortably the whole time and not on my feet like most cake decorating techniques) was that there was huge room for error. If I saw a spot where I had a gap or something needed to be filled in, everything was frozen so I could come back in with the right color and paint in any holes. It was also neat to just let my mind wander and see where a mountain would end up. I froze the cake for another 30 minutes after my last range.

Teeny-tiny trees.

For my trees, I used a small paintbrush and quick little strokes to just dot the bottom of the cake with trees in random places.

Makes me miss the Pacific NW!

I finished off by placing random rock candy around the bottom of the cake and gently securing my bear to the top of the cake.

Getting photos was time consuming because each angle had a new look.

But I beared with it.

And it was worth it to try something new.

I really enjoyed learning and executing this technique, and I will definitely be trying to paint new cakes in the future. It really has a great learning curve, and as long as it looks cool, you've done it right in my book. For now, I'm enjoying this delicious mountain of a cake in all its caramel, fall-adjacent glory. Football is back on TV, the sun isn't bothering me until 9 p.m., and Publix bakery has pumpkin donuts out now. It's happening people! Fall is upon us...which means October isn't far off, so I'll be back soon with spooky Halloween bakes that are to die for...'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Gotta love a good adventure.

Take me back to the mountains!

Pina Colada Paradise

It's July, and it's so hot and humid outside here, walking feels more like wading through syrup. By about 11 a.m., it's too gross to even use the pool (think warm bathwater), and that makes me sweaty and upsetty. I know when people think 'Florida!,' it's usually palm trees, beaches, and umbrella drinks. The actuality is it's gridlocked traffic, oppressive humidity, and a laundry list of things actively trying to kill you (see: hurricanes, sink holes, alligators, and other Floridians). I needed to find a way to cope with the temps, fast. Since my body handles heat with the same level of fortitude as a Popsicle sitting in the sun, I knew this was a job for cupcakes. Specifically, Piña Colada cupcakes full of rum, coconut, and pineapple.

They're so adorable, I *almost* forget how miserable it is outside.

Why not just drink a Piña Colada, you ask? If I have more than one frozen cocktail in a 24-hour span, I will get a brain-freeze + hangover combo for the ages (your 30s are a magical time to be alive). However, I do like Piña Coladas, and I'd be thrilled about getting caught in the rain if it meant heat relief, so I crafted up these little cuties meant to look like bite-sized pineapples (what, you can't fit an entire cupcake in your mouth at once?). I somehow managed to cram them FULL of rum and still have them amount to a mere 210 calories per cupcake for 24 cupcakes. I'll have you know a frozen Piña Colada runs anywhere from 475-650 calories, so by comparison, I can eat like two or three of these with no guilt or hangover. Adulting win!
 

They also only take two hours to make, start to completely finished and in my stomach.

Since I took 72 hours to make my last cake and it was no one's birthday this week, I wanted an extremely easy dessert I could whip up in a moment while I awaited Hurricane Barry's potential arrival. He may have missed us, but I did not miss the mark with these cupcakes. To make, you'll need:

•  1 white cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup of canned pineapple juice
• 3/4 cup of Malibu coconut rum
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 8 ounces of crushed pineapple, drained (you can use the juice for the ingredient above as well) 
• Optional: coconut flakes...I skip this since coconut flakes give me a "let's eat floss" texture to food

 Preheat your oven to 350 and line two muffin trays with cupcake liners. Mix together cake mix, whites, applesauce, pineapple juice, rum, and extract for 2 minutes on medium high. Fold in the crushed pineapple by hand.

Drink more rum as needed.

I used a cookie scoop and placed two scoops of batter into each cupcake liner. I baked these for 20 minutes, until they had a nice white but slightly golden top. Place your trays on top of cooling racks and let cool for 10 minutes, until you can handle the pan by touch.

This is so, so very close to the same color as my pale, fragile body.

 Remove from the pans and let finish cooling on the racks while you make your frosting and chocolate pineapple toppers.

Not gonna lie, I'm running super low on rum now.

This coconut cream cheese frosting is absolutely to DIE for...and not a heatstroke related death due to the fiery inferno happening outside, but a total bliss, so happy you died from deliciousness related death. To make, you need:

• 8 ounces of 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of butter, softened
• 2 cups of Swerve confectioners
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 TBS coconut extract
• 1-2 TBS of Malibu coconut rum
• Yellow gel dye
• Feel free to top these with pineapple chunks, cherries, coconut flakes, whatever Piña Colada drink garnishes you like. I, however, wanted to turn these bad boys into tiny little pineapples...more on how to do that in a moment.

Mix together the cream cheese and butter for 1-2 minutes until well combined. Then add 2 cups of Swerve and the coconut extract, blending well. Add in the 2 cups of powdered sugar, 1 TBS of rum, and yellow gel dye. Blend well. If you want a stiff piping consistency, DO NOT add more rum. Full disclosure, I made these back in May and added 3 total TBS of rum to my frosting, and it was way too runny to pipe with, so I just smattered them in frosting and ate them anyway. I knew I wanted to share this recipe because it was way too good not to, and I was most definitely ready to eat them again based on taste memory alone, so, here we are.

I promise they get cuter.

Fill a piping bag fitted with a large open circle tip (I used a Wilton #12). Place the rest of the frosting into the fridge to stay firm...cream cheese frosting is delicious, but much like me, it does not stand up to any amount of warmth. Pipe a large mound of frosting onto the center of each completely cooled cupcake.

Now we're getting there.

Once you've done this for all 24 cupcakes, load the rest of your frosting into another piping bag fitted with an open star tip (I used a Wilton #32). Starting at the bottom of the large mound of frosting, pipe little pokey stars by applying pressure to the bag and pulling straight up and away quickly. Go all the way around the bottom of the mound, then work your way up one level at a time. I had about 3-4 levels of stars on each cupcake. If you're finding that your frosting is getting too runny due to the heat from your hand, put the bag into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm back up.

A field of blonde hedgehogs...

Put your hedgehogs/pineapples into the fridge so the frosting stays firm, and now get to work on those pineapple tops. No one wants a topless cupcake. I used 1/3 of a bag of green chocolate melts, melted according to package directions and placed into a piping bag with a #5 round tip. I let this sit for a minute so I wouldn't burn my hand off piping hot chocolate.

Pictured: the hellfire flames of Florida summer. Or pineapple tops.

I free-handed about 30 little pineapple tops onto a sheet of wax paper with a Sharpie while my chocolate cooled. I'm no artist when it comes to drawing, so use a template if you're feeling antsy. I flipped over my wax paper so it was Sharpie-side down.

I just didn't want them to accidentally look like pot..

I piped about 4 toppers at a time, tracing the outside lines and flooding the inside. I came back in with an angled spatula and spread the chocolate out evenly. I used the tip of the spatula to drag chocolate out and create the pointy ends of the leaves.

Plenty leftover to eat...

I ended up with way more leaf toppers than I needed, but, they were yummy after a "hard" hour and a half of baking...Let your leaf toppers set up for 30 minutes before gently peeling off the wax paper and placing into the top of each cupcake.

Full cuteness: achieved.

 These are as delicious as they are summery (in a good way, not a sweaty one). The rum and the pineapple mixing with the coconut is sheer perfection. The coconut cream cheese, well, it's life changing. DEFINITELY keep these in the fridge to ensure your frosting stays nice and firm. We all know it's hot, but we don't need a runny, dripping cupcake on the counter to remind us just *how* hot it is this summer. I've made these twice, and both times I have enjoyed the flavor tribute to summer. They take me away to a Piña Colada paradise, where the temp is a balmy 72, the pool never feels like warm bathwater, and humidity is absolutely nonexistent (my hair always looks so good in Piña Colada paradise). I'm glad I still have several evenings worth of this paradise awaiting in the fridge, because I might actually burst into flame if I didn't, so, in your face, Florida. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Can't you just hear the Jimmy Buffet music?