Halloween stuff is everywhere right now and so you can’t help but start to get in the mood…though for the record Costco had out Christmas stuff and that did not put me in the mood for that holiday. People ask me what crazy things I am making for Halloween and I usually tell them nothing, which makes them sad so I decided this year to change that. You will really love what is going up Monday, super cute. I’ve already captured the Halloween spirit by buying candy, I am a sucker for all things mini and that’s all Halloween candy is (I especially love the mini gummy bears). And I of course buy candy corn.

I planned on making these cupcakes three times now. It took the third time to make it happen since I ate the first two bags of candy corn before I successfully did not eat the third bag. At first I was going to make candy corn cookies but I couple people were already doing that and so I decided to go in a different direction. Last year I made candy corn ice cream by just using candy corns and whipped cream and so I decided to take that and use that idea and turn it into frosting for cupcakes. That idea turned out to be a good one.

These are not overly sweet like you would think. Adding the extra whipped cream at the end helps to mellow out the sweetness but still give the candy corn flavor! I don’t give a recipe for the cupcakes as they are just white cupcakes but do tell you how to make them in the recipe. These are a fun treat for kids and adults alike.

On a side note thanks for the well wishes for my mom, she is doing well. Though going stir crazy already as that woman likes to go, go, go. Bed rest and her are not friends.

Candy Corn Whipped Cream Frosting

3 cups heavy whipping cream (40% works best), divided
1 cup candy corn
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup powdered sugar

In a sealable container add candy corn and two cups of heavy whipped cream. Place in fridge for at least 6 hours, but overnight is even better.

Take out of fridge and strain the liquid from the candy corn and place into a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high until it forms stiff peaks. Remove and put in a separate bowl.

Add the remaining heavy cream and cornstarch to bowl and whisk on high, adding the powdered sugar ¼ cup at a time until stiff peaks are formed.

Add the candy corn flavored whipped cream back into the bowl and whisk together on high speed until incorporated.

Keep in fridge until ready to frost fully cooled cupcakes.

This is enough frosting for 12 cupcakes depending how you frost.

To make the cupcakes simply take your favorite white cake recipe or just use boxed white cake. Divide the batter into three parts. Keep one white. Make one yellow with food coloring. Make one orange with food coloring. Layer the colors and bake as directed.

Why are some people so awesome and other people bring suck ass to a new level? Seriously I just don’t get it. And what is even sadder is that it seems that the nice people always end up being trampled by the sucky people. Sometimes I really believe no good deed goes unpunished.

One of the nice people of the world, my mom, is down and out for a little bit as she recovers from her hernia surgery she had on Monday. It got me thinking about her and her favorite thing from my blog. My mom is who I get my love of all things snickerdoodles from. She loves and makes often my snickerdoodle blondies from back in 2009. So I thought I would remake them with a twist.

We had a very fall day around here, I’m not sure we got out of the 50’s and we had lots of rain. It screamed bake something and so I did. And since I promised few people I would be doing a lot of pumpkin recipes on the blog I decided to throw in some pumpkin to these babies. Good stuff. They weren’t meant to swirl as I knew the batter is just too thick, but I wanted the cream cheese mixture to be somewhat separate. So just do your best to swirl it around. I had to get a spatula and kind of reshape them, but you know what, who cares, these were yummy!

The idea came from my ever popular time suck Pinterest. Seriously I love that site. It’s all the outfits, vacations, jewelry, etc I can never afford. But the food, the food I can make. Feel free to pin any of my stuff I will extra love you if you do.

Quick healing to you mom…and if you live in my mom’s town, make these for her and bring them to her please.

Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Cream Cheese Blondies

Snickerdoodle Blondie:
8 ounces (two sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup loosely packed light brown sugar
3 ounces Mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
¾ tsp. cream of tarter
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 cups all-purpose flour

Cinnamon Sugar for coating (about 1/3 cup)

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Filling:

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
½ cup solid packed pumpkin
½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
2 TBSP flour
½ cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.

Butter a 9 by 13-inch pan. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar and move pan around to make sure that the bottom and sides are coated. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cream of tartar.

Using a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars. Beat for three minutes. Scrape down the bowl.

Add the Mascarpone cheese and beat until fully incorporated.

Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Add the vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds.

On low speed add the sifted flour mixture. Mix until fully incorporated.

Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. This will be hard as it is a thick batter. I found it easiest to just wet my hands a little and press the batter into the pan. Then even it out afterwards with a spatula.

Using a clean bowl, cream together on medium high speed cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy, about three minutes.

Add the pumpkin and beat another minute until fully incorporated.

Add vanilla and egg, and beat until incorporated.

Add pumpkin pie spice and flour and beat until incorporated.

Pour on top of snickerdoodle batter. The best you can swirl it around, they are very different consistencies and so this will be hard to do. Don’t worry, you aren’t trying to show the swirl, just get it in there. You might have to move some snickerdoodle batter back into place. Just press down with a spatula.

Sprinkle more cinnamon sugar on top of the batter.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, check your oven starting at around 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Cut into squares and serve.

I have a guest post today over at Nutmeg Nanny’s while she is on vacation. I made Funfetti Rocky Road Brownie with the Funfetti Marshmallows I made. For the recipe and post go here.

At this point I am waiting for people to hire photographers for first date photos. Seriously wedding photographers, this could be your new thing. I think people would fall for it. Hire a photographer to go out with you on every first date because you never know, this could be the one. And wouldn’t it be nice if you could look back on your first date and know that it was all captured by a professional photographer.

I bring this up because I am in awe of how many things nowadays people hire professional photographers for. Don’t get me wrong if you have the money and you want it done, go for it, I certainly have enough friends who take pictures for a living and would appreciate the work. But let’s look for example of a girl I know who her boyfriend arranged for them to have photos of him proposing done. The girl thought they were just getting their pictures taken for a Christmas card. But he popped the question. That wasn’t their engagement photos. It made sense to me that these would be engagement photos since they got engaged and all but nope. The now newlywed had decided that if she had known she was getting engaged that day she would have worn something different. So they got engagement photos. They got photos professionally done for their co-shower. Her bachelorette party (joy…drunk pictures). Photos done of the rehearsal dinner. And of course the wedding. Oh and the brunch the day after where they opened gifts. Ummm. Now I know you want to capture the day and all, but after a couple of years the 9,000 wedding photos you have won’t be displayed in your home. You will have about three. Three is good. This also means you will torture people with your 9,000 photos. Don’t. That is cruel and unusual punishment.

Perhaps the strangest photography moment came at my book club a few months back. I am fairly new to this group. My old one fell apart, it was bound to when we were starting to read books from our childhood since no one had time to read long books. Though who doesn’t love a little Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? (No we really read that, good news was this was the book every person actually read in the club ). Anyway, I am sitting there and I am watching this woman take pictures and I just assume that she likes taking pictures and is a member of our club and she just wasn’t at the last meeting. I found it awkward that she was taking photos of me eating coffee cake and me trying to be polite and eat grapes with a fork (just pick them up, they move around and you look like a moron). I also noticed she was taking a lot of pictures of the hostess seven year old daughter who was there as well. So we started to discuss the book and the woman was still taking pictures. So finally I just said “I’m sorry, I don’t know you, are you new to the group?” to the woman taking pictures. She told me “oh, no. K hired me to take photos of H’s first book club meeting”. Really? Really? No, really? Thank goodness that moment was caught on film…for $200 not including prints, which I am told I am fortunate enough to buy if I so choose. No, thanks, I have plenty of photos of me eating coffee cake.

We had book club again last week, which we tried for a week night this time around (I prefer weekend). They tried to get me to make chocolate molten cake. No one was catching on that this is not really a portable dessert and needs to be eaten warm. But it did get me thinking about chocolate molten cake. It used to be everywhere and now has fallen out of favor. I still like it. Friends of mine are in Germany right now at Oktoberfest and so that made me think of Black Forest Cake…and that’s where the idea for this all came from.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend…hopefully you hired someone to photograph it for you.

Black Forest Molten Cake

4 ounces semi-sweet baking chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 tsp. Kirsch liquor
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
6 TBSP all-purpose flour
12 cherries, pitted (two for each cake)
Whipped Cream to garnish
Cherries to garnish

Preheat oven to 425°F. Butter 6 (6-ounce) custard cups or soufflé dishes. Place on baking sheet.

Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwavable bowl on HIGH 1 minute or until butter is melted.

Stir with wire whisk until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in vanilla and Kirsch.

Stir in sugar until well blended. Whisk in eggs and yolk. Stir in flour. Pour batter into prepared custard cups.

Place two cherries in middle of custard cup.

Bake 10 to 14 minutes or until sides are firm but centers are soft. Let stand 1 minute.

Carefully loosen edges with small knife. Invert cakes onto serving plates. Serve immediately with whipped cream and extra cherries.

Adapted from McCormick.com