Tag Archives: Halloween

Cake Me Up Before You Go Ghoooost?!

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My daughter’s birthday is on Sunday, but we won’t be able to celebrate with her because we are attending a wedding.  My parents will be watching her, and my mom decided to throw her a party.  She invited some of her friends and their grandchildren for a birthday shindig.  My mom is pretty excited, it’s cute.  She asked me to bake a cake, and since I have a ton of decorations and candy left from our Halloween Oreos, obviously I am going with a Halloween cake.

I decided to buy a cake mix, and add a few touches to make it taste more homey, like I did with my mocha layer cake.  I am not fond of store bought frosting, so I decided to make my own buttercream frosting.  This was also a good chance to redeem myself from my frosting fiasco when I made my mocha cake.

Zoe picked out a rainbow cake mix from Target.  I mean, come on.  It’s a rainbow cake.  It is way cooler than a plain old chocolate or vanilla cake.  I followed the cake mix directions to make a 9×13 sheet cake.  I used some of Rachael Ray’s advice to make the cake mix better.  Since the cake mix only wanted egg whites, I added a tablespoon of melted butter for each missing egg yolk.  I substituted milk for the water, and melted butter for the vegetable oil.  I also added a big splash of vanilla extract.

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The cake mix came with food coloring and instructions on how to mix the colors.  This was an exciting cake to make.

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I poured in the different colored batters and swirled a butter knife around a few times.  After the cake finished baking, I let it cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes before transferring it to a wire cooling rack.

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I had to resist the urge to cut the cake to see what the inside looked like.  I suppose I could have cut it and glued the pieces together with frosting…but that would have been unnecessary trouble.  The cake is on my cake carrier by the way, since I will be transporting the cake.

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I found an easy and tasty chocolate buttercream frosting recipe from Divas Can Cook.  I followed the recipe fairly closely.  The key word for this frosting is FLUFFY.  It’s so fluffy I’m gonna diiie!

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I sifted the cocoa powder and the powdered sugar.  I don’t have a fancy sifter, I just use a mesh strainer.  See those big lumps of cocoa?  Sifting gets rid of those lumps and makes the powder fluffy and soft.  Use the same bowl for the cocoa powder and powdered sugar.  No need to dirty another bowl.

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Here is my butter and heavy cream.  Make sure to take the butter out of the fridge for a couple of hours until it warms up.  Don’t use the microwave to warm it up.  Mix until the butter turns into a smooth and fluffy pile.

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Here is my chocolate butter, which sounds really delicious spread on a warm croissant.

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Here is my chocolate frosting.  When you first mix in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder, start on low speed or else you will have a blast of powder choking your eyes, nose, and throat.  Work your way to medium/high to high speed and keep going until the mixture changes from a dark colored, shiny, clumpy brown blob to a light brown, matte colored, smooth and fluffy brown frosting.

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I frosted my cake.  I realize I did a really messy job frosting.  There is a reason.

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I got these cute bone and gravestone molds on sale.  I melted a little white candy for the bones, and then I mixed some white and black candy together to make gray for the gravestones.

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I used my mortar and pestle to smash up a few Oreos to make dirt.  Sure, I could use my food processor, but that thing is so heavy and in too many pieces, and just total overkill for a few Oreos.  If you don’t have an alchemist’s tools, you can also use your fists and crush them like a worm.

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Now it’s really fun time.  This reminds me of building a gingerbread house, except it takes place in a graveyard, with worms, and dirt, and creepy things…  A couple of my Halloween Oreos came to hang out at the graveyard too.

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First I made the graveyard.  I stuck the gravestones into the frosting and cake, then I made Oreo dirt mounds.  Some gummy worms and bones up the creepy factor.

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I made an M&M path.

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Pumpkin patch in the corner, and spooky Oreo buddies out and about.

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I made a candy corn and M&M fence around the graveyard and pumpkin patch.  Then I added some finishing touches.  I sprinkled black sugar crystals all over the cake.  I sprinkled some green sugar crystals over the pumpkin patch.  I spread worms, candy ghosts, and candy leaves and acorns everywhere.  Good luck to my mom with cutting the cake.

This is so freaking cute.  Patting myself on the back here.

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Close ups for your viewing pleasure.

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Chocolate Buttercream Frosting adapted from Divas Can Cook
Ingredients
– 2 sticks of unsalted butter
– 1 tbs heavy cream
– 2 tsp vanilla extract
– 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
– 1/2 cup cocoa powder
– 2.5 cups powdered sugar
– pinch of salt

Directions
– Let the butter warm up at room temperature until it is soft.
– Melt the chocolate chips and let it cool down.
– Sift the cocoa powder and powdered sugar.
– Cream the butter until fluffy.  Add the heavy cream and mix it some more.
– Mix in the vanilla and melted chocolate.
– Slowly mix in the cocoa powder, powdered sugar and salt.  Start on low speed and work your way to medium high to high speed.  Keep mixing until the mixture turns from dark brown and shiny to light brown, matte colored, and fluffy. 

OooOoo! OoOoreOoo!

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My daughter’s birthday is right before Halloween, and she will be celebrating it at her school.  That means bringing some kind of treat to share with the kids.  She didn’t get to help me make Oreo poké balls a couple of weeks ago, and she keeps asking to make some with me.  So I decided to make Halloween Oreos with her for her birthday.  I hit up Michaels and Target for cake decorations, candy, and more candy melts.  I was a little late in the Halloween shopping game, so pickings were slim.  However, good thing is everything at Michaels was 60% off.  I also happened to have a big box of Oreos from Costco because they were on sale last month.  Woot!

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I got black, white, and orange candy melts.  I heated them up using low power and in 30 second intervals.  If you want the entire melting experience, check out my Oreo poké ball post.  Since I was covering the entire cookie this time, I dunked the whole thing into my bowl of melted candy.  I used a spoon and a fork to get it all covered, and shook off the excess before putting it on wax paper to dry.

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My daughter had a lot of fun decorating the cookies.  Her cookies turned out to be more Halloween Candy Oreos than Halloween Oreos.

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I got to decorate some too.

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Loop the Loop

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Do you ever walk by accessory stores selling super cute hair clips, and think, for the price of two pairs of clips, you can buy a few materials and make like, 50 clips yourself?  And then, you end up buying the two pairs of clips anyways because it would take too much time and effort to make them yourself.

When my daughter finally started growing more hair, that was really exciting for me.  For the first two years of her life, she looked like a boy, and strangers would always say, “what a sweet boy, he is so cute,” and I would just go with it because I was tired of pointing out that he is a she.  This even happened when she wore dresses, so, whatever, shrug.

So she finally had enough hair for me to do stuff to it.  I happened to have leftover ribbon from other projects, so I tried my hand at making hair clips.  Suddenly, I found myself scouring craft stores for their sale and clearance ribbons, and now I have a lot of ribbon.

A few days ago, I was at Joann’s, and I saw fall themed ribbons on sale, and I couldn’t resist getting a sparkly orange ribbon.  I already had some black ribbon at home, so I decided to make Halloween hair clips.  Here is my model with the finished Halloween flower hair clip.

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I got out my glue gun, scissors, ribbon, 2 alligator hair clips (use clips with no teeth), 2 gems, needle and thread, and Fray Check.  I used a shiny orange ribbon, black satin ribbon, and a thin sparkly black ribbon.  You can use whatever color thread you want since it won’t be seen in the end.  Fray Check is a liquid seam sealant that keeps fabric from fraying.  It’s not necessary, but I get paranoid and like to dab a bit on the ends of the ribbon, just in case.

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The alligator clips are 1.75″ long.  I cut two 6.5″ pieces of shiny orange ribbon, and two 6.5″ pieces of thin sparkly black ribbon.  I dabbed a tiny bit of Fray Check on the ends of the ribbon.

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I used the glue gun to first glue the orange ribbon onto the clip.  The ribbon is long enough to cover the entire outside of the clip, and most of the underside of the clip.  I worked in small sections because the hot glue cools fast and I didn’t want to rush and screw up.  I started from the inside, and worked my way around the clip.

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After I glued on the orange ribbon, I glued the thin black ribbon on top of the orange ribbon.

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Ok, so they look kind of like caterpillars right now.

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I cut sixteen 1.9″ pieces of orange ribbon, and sixteen 1.5″ pieces of black satin ribbon.  Each flower needs 8 orange and 8 black pieces.  Depending on how big you want your flower to be, you can make these pieces longer or shorter.  I dabbed some Fray Check on each ribbon end.

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I stacked one orange piece with a black piece and went through the center of one end with the needle and thread.

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I stacked the other end of the two pieces and connected the other end with the needle and thread to make a loop.

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I made loops with 8 sets of orange and black pieces.  See where I’m going with this?

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After I finished making the 8th loop, I tied a knot at the end of the thread and cut the extra off.

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I used the glue gun to connect the ends of the first and last loops.  Fluff the loops out if they got squished.  Then I glued a gem to the middle of the flower.

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Glue the finished flower to the hair clip.  Now do everything again to make the second flower.

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Yay!  Cute hair clips.  One of these days, I need to get a tripod so I can make video tutorials.  Let me know if you have questions.

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