BOwahhaaah! I love a good scare! But please not too scary! Yeah I know I’m a bit picky when it comes to scary stuff… but I love to laugh when I get a fright 🙂 So, with Halloween just around the corner I’m going to share some good fun baking recipes with you:
Spooky pumpkin cupcakes:
What you’ll need:
– 400 gram (butternut) pumpkin, peeled and diced
– 300 gram brown sugar
– 4 eggs
– dash of salt
– 300 gram plain flour
– 2 teaspoons baking powder
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon
– 175 mls olive oil
Put the pumpkin pieces in a food processor and add the sugar. Wizz it until the pieces are finely chopped. Add the eggs one by one. Add the salt, baking powder, cinnamon and flour (bit by bit) and slowly add the olive oil. Keep the machine going until you have a lovely batter. Because of the olive oil, this cupcake batter is a lot thiner.
Fill the cupcake shapes with about 2 – 3 tablespoons of the pumpkin mixture and bake them in a preheated over (180 degrees) for about 20 – 25 minutes.
As extra crunch you could add some chopped nuts to the batter.
To give an extra Halloween feel, I’ve added a spooky onto the cupcake.
Take 1 baked cupcake and slice it into thick slices. Cut each slice to the height of your spooky. Take a small ball of white fondant, roll it flat with a rolling pin and drape it over your piece of cupcake on top of your whole cupcake. (Am I making sense?)
Meringue spookies
Meringues themselves aren’t that easy to make as you really need to make sure that your equipment is clean. I got this recipe from Cupcake Jemma, she’s lovely and wonderful with baking, check her out on FoodTube.
So for lots (yes I mean lots as in at least 30) spooky meringues you need 5 egg whites and 300 gram castor sugar. Beat the eggs whites until fluffy, and add the sugar spoon by spoon and beat on high speed until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the meringue mixture to a piping bag and squeeze each spooky gently onto a sheet of baking paper. Slowly bake them at 150 degrees for at least 40 minutes. Cupcake Jemma will show you how.
Witches Fingers
Another freaky homemade treat. What you’ll need for about 15 fingers:
– 150 gram plain flour
– 75 gram soft white sugar
– pinch of salt
– 100 gram cold butter
– slivered almonds
– red food colouring
Baking cookies with a butter base here on Curacao can be a real challenge. This recipe, when working quickly, can be done in the tropical heat. Just make sure that your dough doesn’t get too warm, or your hands for that matter.
Sift the flour in a bowl, add the sugar and salt. Add the cold butter and cut the butter, in the bowl with flour and sugar, into smaller pieces using two butter knives, this so that the butter stays cool.
With cool hands ( I uses some ice water to cool my hands) kneed the dough into a ball, or you can lay it between tow sheets of plastic wrap and roll it flat, and chill in the fridge for about 30 mins.
Preheat the over to 160 degrees. Prepare the baking tray by lining it with a sheet of baking paper.
Take the dough from the fridge and divide it into 15 equal parts. Shape each part into a sausage like shape and mould it into a finger shape.
Make indents where the knuckles would be, slightly flatten it where the nail would be and place a slivered almond as the nail itself.
Lightly score the top of the knuckles with the back of a knife.
Bake the fingers for about 15 minutes, don’t bake them too brown. When cooled you can add a drop of red food colouring around the fingernails.
Freaky stuff! Be sure to share your baking wonders with me on my Facebook page!
