Recipe: Belated Halloween Edition

For Halloween I thought I'd go all out, I made Pumpkin Cupcakes as well as Sugar cookies cut into the shape of bats and pumpkins and cats. I think it was all rather a success, and I seem to enjoy spamming this blog with a lot of updates all at once, so here it goes.

SUGAR COOKIES

The sugar cookie recipe is from my Mom, we make them every year for Christmas, always have, and a few years ago we started making them occasionally for Valentines day or Halloween. It sounds silly, but these taste completely different than they do at Christmastime, although they're still just as tasty. It's a pretty easy recipe, I don't think you could mess it up too badly.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions:
Mix flour, bakign soda, and salt in a bowl, set aside. In a large bowl cream butter, add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together. Slowly add the flour mixture until thoroughly mixed in. Chill for 2 hours.
Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, cut into shapes with cookie cutters and add sprinkles. Bake at 375 degrees for 5-8 minutes, cool on wire rack.

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

Now, the pumpkin cupcakes seem a bit unusual, but they taste amazing. I iced them with this great Cream Cheese Icing recipe I have and decorated them just using a bag of colored icing.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin

Directions:
Beat oil and sugars together in a large mixing bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Add the eggs to the sugar mixture, alternately add flour mix and buttermilk/vanilla, starting and ending with flour. Beat in the pumpkin until smooth.
Scoop batter into lined cupcake tins 3/4 of the way full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely before icing.

CREAM CHEESE ICING

Ingredients:
8 ounces cream cheese, soft
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 tbs butter, soft
1 tsp vannilla

Directions:
Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth, add sugar and vanilla and continue to mix until it is a smooth, spreadable consistency.

All of this might be a bit belated, but you can always have pumpkin cupcakes during Thanksgiving, and I've yet to find someone who doesn't like sugar cookies.

<3