Cinnamon Apple Quick Bread

I am waaaaaaay behind on the posts I had hoped to make. I still have an entire summer's worth of farm-share related blogs to get to, but I'm going to not even think about those until after this holiday season is done.

Although I love yeast breads, the joy and simplicity of a simple quick bread never ceases to amaze me. After I went on my annual apple-picking excursion, I wanted to try some new things with my apples. The first recipe I settled on was an apple quick bread, which is a variation of Paula Deen's zucchini bread, which I became well-acquainted with this summer during my farm share, when I had zucchinis coming out of my ears. At the time, I thought the base would be good for other fruit or veggie mix-ins, and I was right. With a little tweaking, I made this recipe work beautifully for apples.

But first, a little interlude (or skip down for more baking!):

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday, hand's down. Not only do I love Halloween-themed treats, but I love Halloween tradition as well.  Last year, around this time, I paired my Halloween and Fall-themed posts with little blurbs on the background of some common Halloween tradition and/or lore, including the history of Halloween and trick-or-treating, vampires, zombies, jack-o-lanterns, and bobbing for apples. This year, even though I am starting a little late, I am continuing that tradition with this latest topic:

"So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat."

This is my 6 month old kitty cat, Severus (as in Severus Snape, because I'm a huge nerd), and he and his brother Magnus hold my heart in their paws. I've always been a dog person, growing up I had a wonderful German Shepherd, and I never seriously contemplated owning a cat. But, I always promised myself that if I did ever get a cat, he would be jet black from the tips of his ears to the bottoms of his paws. There's just something about them that draws me in. So what more perfect Halloween interlude than to examine the superstition surrounding Halloween and

Throughout history, the attitude towards cats in general has been one of dueling extremes. In ancient times, particularly in Egypt and Rome, cats were revered. In Egypt, they were the earthly representatives of the goddess Bastet, while in Rome, they were often worshiped as household gods. The ancient Christians had a tradition that a tabby cat kept the baby Jesus warm when he was born, and in gratitude, the Virgin Mary bestowed the characteristic "M" on his forehead.

But during the Dark and Middle Ages, this began to change. In 1232, the Pope suggested that cats might in fact be agents of the Devil. Although no one is sure what caused this shift in attitudes, the fact that cats are nocturnal animals with highly reflective eyes that seem to glow and aloof demeanors probably didn't help matters any! Many cats were burned at the stake along with their owners during medieval witch hunts. One high-profile example in the 17th century was the story of Charles I and his favorite cat, which happened to be black. Charles I was very attached to his kitty, so the story goes, and even assigned guards for its protection.  When it died, he allegedly exclaimed that his luck had gone, and the very next day, he was arrested. His subsequent execution resulted in the (temporary) overthrow of the British monarchy, and only did more damage to the reputation of black cats. In the latter part of the 17th century, New England witch hunters in Salem and elsewhere became convinced that cats, particularly black ones, were familiars -- that is, the spirits in animal form that collude with and assist witches.  These early attitudes gave rise to most of the black cat superstitions we are familiar with today, such as: having bad luck if a black cat crosses your path; a black cat at a funeral meaning another family member will die; and just the general bad luck that was believed to follow black cats around. It also gave rise to the classic Halloween icon of a black cat silhouette. 

Even though we live in modern times, some superstitions unfortunately die hard, because a study in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science looking at adoption rates in  CA animal shelters found that black cats have the lowest adoption rate out of all coat colors. All Halloween playfulness aside, this is heartbreakingly unfortunate for all the sweet black kitties out there that desperately need love. If you're ever in a position to welcome a cat into your home, and you have a choice of a black one, please seriously consider taking him or her since statistics show that it is unlikely that someone else will come along to adopt him. :-(

And now, back to baking!

Cinnamon Apple Bread

This recipe is ridiculously easy. So easy that I hardly have any pics to go with the post. First, start with some apples. I used Fuji exclusively, because that is what looked good at the orchard, but generally I like to have a mix of apples.  Either dice them up or shred them using the biggest openings on your shredder. I chose to shred because it goes quickly, and I always get lazy when I'm dicing, and I end up with progressively larger and larger pieces...

Mix a little lemon juice into those cut apples, to slow down the oxidation (browning).

Pre-combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and spices. A note about the sugar: I've made this bread using a variety of sugar amounts, from 1 cup to 3 cups, which is why there is a range in the recipe listed below. It depends on what taste you are going for. 1 cup of sugar is hardly sweet at all, and would pair well with a glaze or icing. 2 cups is moderately sweet, and 3 (what the original recipe called for) is very sweet, like apple pound cake. I personally like 2 cups the best, half brown and half white, but that is my tastebuds. My husband prefers 1 cup.

Beat the eggs together with oil and water in a separate bowl, then mix in the apples (and nuts if you want them).

Combine the dry and wet ingredients together.

Then, take 2-9x5" loaf pans, spray them with butter spray, and line the bottom with parchment. Spraying before you put the parchment on the bottom helps it to stick to the metal. Then give the top of the parchment a little spray as well. Don't skip the parchment step, believe me, I only tell you to parchment-line something if it is really necessary. Then, divide the batter between the two loaf pans, and bake at 350F for about 50 minutes (as a range, I'd say anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour). Keep baking until a tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for ten minutes before de-panning and cooling fully.

This bread is a yummy and fragrant bit of Fall, studded with apples and walnuts, and swirled with spices. It would probably be delicious with a caramel glaze, but that involved going to the store, so I didn't bother. As-is, however, 2 loaves got devoured in a single day at my work. If you have apples, and you want to make more than just pies and crisps, consider making this bread!

Cinnamon Apple Bread

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

• 2 C apples, shredded
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 4 eggs
• 1 C vegetable oil
• 1/3 C water
• 3-1/4 C AP flour
• 2 C sugar (1C brown, 1C white)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 C nuts, pecans or walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Shred or dice apples, and mix with lemon juice
3. Beat together eggs, oil, and water. Stir in apples and nuts
4. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and spices in separate bowl
5. Combine wet and dry ingredients
6. Line the bottoms of two 9x5" loaf pans with parchment, and spray bottom and sides of pans
7. Divide batter evenly between 2 pans and bake for about 50-60 minutes, until tester comes out clean 
8. Cool in pan for ten minutes, then de-pan
9. Enjoy!

Zombie Brain Cupcakes (Easy Halloween Cupcake #2)

Zombies. Rotten reanimated corpses stumbling hither and thither in search of brains and other various human body parts on which to feed. I love them for it. Zombie movies, zombie games, zombie merchandise, I devour them all with a ravenous hunger that rivals any denizen of the undead. Unlike the other usual suspects of Halloween, such as vampires, witches and mummies, who can simultaneously be bad while exuding both sex appeal and style (don’t think a mummy can be sexy? Then you haven’t seen Arnold Vosloo), zombies seem to exist for no other reason than to kill. They are remorseless, they are ruthlessly terrifying, they are…not at all appetizing. And, at least for those zombies of George A. Romero’s fertile imagination, they are actually quite gross. I don’t want to see that on a cupcake, although there are some who might. But, there are ways to create a zombie-themed confection without resorting to decomposition.



One easy way is to use something like zombie hand picks, which can easily be put on an Oreo crumb-covered cupcake to simulate a zombie rising from the dead. The way described in this post is to make “brain” cupcakes, which would also feel right at home at any mad scientist gathering.

But first, a scientific interlude about zombies and their quest for

Skip to below if you just want to get to the cupcakes!

We’ve all seen zombie movies. We all know the vague anecdotal references to zombie-like trances that voodoo-ish practices can supposedly cause. The question is, can they exist? And the answer is…what do you mean by zombie? There are two main classes of zombies, as I see it. Those that are truly dead, and those that are mindless.

Radiation. Apocalypse. Mystery virus. Or, as is the case with many zombie movies: cause unknown. The catalyst in any classical zombie outbreak is some precipitating factor that inexplicably reanimates dead tissue. The dead rise and inevitably being to hunt humans.  Can it happen?

Negative. When I say dead, I mean really dead, not just clinically dead. In the laboratory, scientists have been able to revive dogs who had been clinically dead for up to 3 hours. But I’m not talking about someone whose heart stopped and was revived. I’m talking someone who is truly no more…has ceased to be…is expired and gone to meet his maker…is a stiff...bereft of life…metabolic processes are now history…kicked the bucket…shuffled off his mortal coil…run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible…an ex-parrot, er, I mean ex-person. Yeah. That won’t happen. Without getting too scientific, muscles need energy to move, in the form of ATP. ATP production requires functional metabolism on a cellular level. Muscles also require input from the brain for coordinated movement. Reflex movement, no. But the type of coordinated movement that is necessary for walking (much less hunting) would be impossible for a dead brain. Nevermind that in order to hunt, zombies would have to retain some level of higher cortical function. Yes, in the confines of a fantasy movieverse, one could make a tenuous rationale for undead zombie metabolism and movement that can hold up well enough for two hours, especially if people want to believe, but as far as having to worry about undead hordes, it won’t be a problem. Although, if you are interested, a Harvard psychiatrist named Dr. Steven C. Schlozman has written an interesting mock journal article examining the zombie brain.

However, another important tenant of undead zombie lore (and the zombie mythos in general) is: if you get bit (and aren’t completely devoured on the spot by zombies) you’ll become a zombie yourself. For Romero zombies of the undead variety, it isn’t always clear whether the transformation occurs because the person died and death itself is the only requirement for becoming a zombie, or because there was some sort of contaminant in the blood, either a toxin or a virus. Which segues into the second form of zombie: living people who act like zombies.

Whether by voodoo, toxin, or pandemic illness, some zombie outbreaks are caused by living people who only act like the undead, without higher brain functions. Such scenarios encompass the Haitian “zombies” as well as the “zombies” from stories such as 28 Days Later and I Am Legend. Is it possible?...Maybe…

Voodoo Zombies
According to West African and Haitian traditions, zombies (or zombi) are dead people that can be revived by a sort of shaman called a bokor. In Haiti, zombie creation is accepted as a reality, so much so that there are laws enacted by the Haitian government outlawing it. In the 1980s, the work of a Harvard ethnobotanist (someone who studies how different cultures use plants), Dr. Wade Davis, brought Haitian zombies to worldwide attention when he published books claiming that he found evidence that bokors induced a zombie-like mindless trance through the use of chemical agents, namely tetrodoxin that had been isolated from pufferfish. Dr. Davis’ hypothesis was that the combination of tetrodoxin and dissociative drugs first induced a state of animated suspension which the person believed was death, followed by re-awakening post-burial inducing a psychotic state (perpetuated by continual medication from the bokor) that convinced the person he was a zombie, and making him susceptible to control. As evidence, Davis highlighted the now-famous case of Clairvius Narcisse, who claimed that he had “died” in 1962 and was revived by a bokor and forced to work on a sugar plantation for 18 years as a slave. However, there are some gaping scientific holes in Dr. Davis’ theories, starting with the fact that tetrodoxin can cause paralysis and unconsciousness, but not the trances that Davis describes, and certainly not for years. Many in the scientific community also doubt that any person, bokor or not, would be able to keep someone in a constant hallucinogenic trance for years.

Far more likely, the reported zombie cases in Haiti are a combination of people being accidentally buried alive and suffering several psychological trauma as a result, or of mistaken identity due to a combination of a wandering mentally ill person identified by mourning relatives. A case study published in Lancet examining “zombie” cases in Haiti (Lancet 1997; 350:1094-1096) used DNA testing to determine that most “zombie” cases were actually cases of mistaken identity by a bereaved family. In only one case was the “zombie” found to actually belong to the family that claimed her, with a quick examination of her tomb revealing that it was empty. She was diagnosed as having suffered anoxic brain injury from being sealed in the tomb, which accounted for her zombie-like trance – oxygen deprivation destroyed her higher brain functions. That particular case is a tad sinister since it was clear that 1. She was buried; and 2. Someone probably removed her from her tomb, because her tomb was filled with rocks. The scientists who investigated left the door open to the possibility that some person (call him a bokor or whatever) might very well have poisoned her to simulate death, and then retrieved the body later. The possibility for that to happen to other people does, in fact, exist.

Zombie Infection
So what about a plague upon mankind that reduces its victims to mindless and/or crazed hordes, a la 28 Days Later? These “zombies” are definitely alive, but no longer in control of their faculties. Could humans become exposed to or infected with some disease that alters their brain chemistry to such an extent that they can exhibit zombie-like behavior? It might be unlikely, but it isn’t technically impossible.

When neurotransmitters become aberrantly regulated, they can have a severe impact on behaviors such as aggression. Pump rats full of serotonin, and they attack each other more easily than they would otherwise. Throw them enough out of whack in response to a disease, for a large enough segment of the population, and theoretically it is anyone’s guess what will happen.

As far as viruses go, there is already at least one virus out there that mucks up brain chemistry, causes hyper-aggression, and is transmitted through a bite: rabies, which proves that aggression-causing viruses do exist in nature. Given the rate of expected new virus discovery in the coming decades (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275 (1647), 2111-2115), plus, the constantly expanding pool of zoonotic viruses (viruses that are coming from animal hosts to infect humans), who knows what challenges new viruses might bring. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying it will happen, I’m just not saying it can’t.

There are other infections that can cause gross behavioral changes. Take Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which is a fungus that infects ants, turning them into so-called “zombie ants”.  Basically,  this fungus can only thrive under certain exact conditions, and when it infects an ant, it hijacks the ant’s behavior to the point where the ant seeks out leaves in those exact specific locations where the fungus can grow, and when it finds them, it clamps down on the leaf and dies. Once that happens, the fungus spores in the ant’s body sprout and disperse seeds. If the ants are moved to even slightly different locations after death, no spores sprout, so this induced behavior is extremely specific and solely designed to provide the fungus with the correct environment. Or how about Toxoplasma gondii, for instance. This parasite lives the majority of its life cycle in the gut of cats, which is where it wants to be most of the time. But when it sheds its eggs, those eggs are eaten by other critters such as rats, where they hatch. But the brand-new T. gondii wants to get back to cats pronto, so it alters the behavior of infected rats in one vital way: Normally, rats have a panic attack when they come into contact with cat urine, which is an evolved response to keep them out of areas where cats live and patrol. Buuuut...infected rats lose this anxiety when they smell cats, so they just waltz into cat-infested areas, presumably to get eaten. Humans can also be hosts to T. gondii, and there is some (controversial) evidence that this parasite can also alter behavior in humans. There might even be a link between T. gondii infection and schizophrenia, although this is not completely understood, and is a matter of much debate. But the point is, there are parasites out there that can hijack behavior in a variety of different ways, even when those ways go against every tenet of self-preservation. Just because it hasn’t verifiably happened yet for humans doesn’t mean that it never will.

Now, are these living zombies true zombies according to genre purists? If you have hordes of crazed people hunting down humans and chomping on them, do those distinctions even matter?

Whew! That was a long interlude! Sorry, I’m a biologist, and this stuff excites me. But now on to the

These cupcakes are pretty easy, they are more decoration than anything else. I injected heated jam into them to make them look “bloody” (check out my Vampire cupcakes to see more details on the actual injection). But, you can fill them with anything you want, or nothing at all. Some cherry pie filling from a can would work well mixed with some almond extract, or some red Jell-o to make a poke cake. If you are using cherry pie filling, or any filling that involves cutting a plug out of the cupcake for filling, you can use any type of batter you want. If you are relying on something soaking into the cake itself, like jam or Jell-o, I recommend a yellow or white batter so it is easier to see.

So, step one, bake those cupcakes!

Step two, fill them or poke them, or whatever you are planning to do. Like the vampire cupcakes, I used a syringe to fill these. And like I mentioned in my previous post, if you remove the needle part too fast, the jam will come gushing back out of the hole, so easy does it. Although, these can look a little messy. They are brains, after all.

Then, make some icing, and dye it a light grey color or a light beige color with some gel. I used a basic buttercream (recipe below) but you can use any icing that will stand up to being piped, and that you can dye grey.

You are going to be piping either with a round tip (#12) or with a bag with a ½” snip taken out of the corner. Mentally divide your cupcake surface into halves. Then, in one sequential motion, draw a line down the center of the cupcake, and bring it back up around the edge, tracing a semicircle. Without interrupting the flow of icing, fill down the empty semicircle with a curving zig-zag motion (see diagram below).

This is one hemisphere, so repeat the mirror image for the other half of the cupcake, and voila, brain!

To make it a little more gory, you can dab your bloody filling along the brains. I have a feeling this would work better with the Jell-o than with the jam. As thin as the jam was, it was still a little too thick to run down the sides of the icing in the way I was hoping for. But it didn’t turn out too badly, although it was so hot in my apartment that my icing started to melt.

These cupcakes only take a little extra effort, but they are a great way to pull together a theme. If you have more time, they could be done a heck of a lot nicer than I did, but they get the job done either way. They definitely qualify as on e of the easier Halloween treats!

Basic Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1-3 teaspoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. Beat softened butter until fluffy, then add in the sugar and salt.
2. Add in vanilla extract, and milk one tsp at a time until you reach desired piping consistency

Vampire and Slayer Cupcakes (Easy Halloween Cupcake #1)

Like my previous Halloween post on Quick Creepy Treats, this post and the few following it are not actual recipes, but ideas and directions for assembly of some quick Halloween-themed treats, in this case, cupcakes. But not just any cupcakes…vampire cupcakes…and slayer cupcakes!

In other words, 

Welcome to the Hellmouth. Or my kitchen. Either way. Now, vampirism is a cumbersome and complex topic, full of history and pop culture references. For just a bite (get it?) of vampire lore concerning that most famous of all vamps, keep reading, or scroll down to the pics to get back to the Buffy baking!

Vampires, those eternal creatures of the night that feed on the life forces of the living, make an appearance in the legends of nearly all of the world’s cultures, from the Lilitu of ancient Persia and the Lamia of ancient Greece, all the way to the Loogaroo of the Caribbean (as well as several varieties not brought to you by the letter “L”). Stories of the undead who drain the life essence of humans exist on every continent, but perhaps nowhere so famously as in Eastern Europe, the home of the infamous Dracula.

Even before Bram Stoker came along, vampire mythology had a long tradition in eastern Europe, most notably amongst the Slavs and Romanians. Although he was not the original source of the vampire legends, one man’s legacy provided the basis for our modern classical concept of vampires as described by Stoker: Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Tepes, was born in Transylvania, but he did not technically reign there. Vlad III was actually the Voivode of Wallachia, a principality that is part of modern day Romania. Voivode is a uniquely Slavic title that combines the authority of a prince with that of a supreme military commander. Vlad inherited the voivodeship from his father, Vlad Dracul, so named because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon (from the Greek: Δράκων (Dracon)). Because of this, Vlad III became known as Vlad Dracula, literally “son of the dragon”.  But there was something prophetic about this moniker, because the Romanian word drac has a meaning of its own: devil.

Now, Vlad did not start out as a torturer and mass murderer. He started out as an eleven year old boy who had been sent as a political hostage to the Ottomans as a show of loyalty between Vlad’s father and his tenuous Turkish allies against the Hungarians. Such things were common during this time period, but Vlad was badly mistreated by the Ottomans over a period spanning 5 years, which sowed the seeds of his implacable hatred of the Ottomans later in life. At the age of 16, Vlad’s father was murdered by the boyars (aristocrats) of Wallachia, who had allied with the Hungarians, while his older brother Mircea was blinded and buried alive. So there was quite a bit of revenge mixed into Vlad’s bloody story. Everything came to a head on Easter Sunday, 1457, when Vlad finally had his revenge: the older boyars and families were all impaled, while the younger boyars were enslaved to rebuild Poienari Castle. None survived. Over the rest of his reign, Vlad systematically wiped out the entire aristocracy of his country, who were not only associated with the murder of his family, but who also had a long history of undermining the Voivode’s authority.

Vlad III’s reign itself was not so very remarkable in the context of a 15th century ruler who was trying to consolidate power – he killed everyone opposed to him or who he thought might pose a challenge to his authority in the future, including both his own people and those of rival nations.  But what made Vlad so interesting, and what undoubtedly caught Stoker’s attention, was his unusual method of killing and torturing. As he did with the boyars, Vlad preferred impalement as his execution method of choice, with a side of torture thrown in: the stake was gradually driven into the bodies – so gradually that it could take days for the victim to die. And Vlad didn’t stop with the boyars, he impaled tens of thousands of people, many of whom were prisoners of war.  In 1462, Mehmed II, ruler of Constantinople, was said to have retreated back to Ottoman lands with his army in fear and disgust when he encountered more than 20,000 Turkish prisoners of war staked to the ground outside of Vlad’s capital city.  And while tales of his cruelty and massacres are still infamous in adjacent areas and found their way into many local vampire legends, in Romania he is still lauded as a national hero for his war against the Ottomans.

However, the real-life Dracula didn’t lend much to Stoker beyond his name, location, and method of execution: a stake through the heart. Which brings us to:

The contributions to pop culture of Joss Whedon notwithstanding, the most prevalent vampire hunter lore again comes from Eastern Europe, especially from Romani oral traditions (not to be confused with Romanians, Romani are Gypsies). According to Romani legends, the offspring of a vampire and a mortal, dhampir, had the ability to see and identify vampires, and could thus protect their villages from them. They also had the extra advantages of superhuman speed, strength and agility, making them well equipped to throw down with vampires.  There are rough counterparts to this concept in several Balkan and Slavic areas, some half vampires and some not, but all endowed with extra abilities to combat the supernatural. However, unlike modern fictional portrayals of vampire hunters, the hunters of legend were usually identifiable by the fact that they were grossly malformed.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled baking!

 These cupcakes are so simple, I really think I gave them their own post in order to have an opportunity to write about vampires and somehow incorporate Buffy into my baking. But in any event, as with the previous Halloween treats I posted, this is the simplest version of a theme. Depending on the amount of time you want to spend, you can get proportionally more elaborate than I did here.

This is what I used.

First, you bake some cupcakes. Easy, right? I used a Sprinkles vanilla cylinder because I had it on hand, but you can make any kind you want. But, give some forethought to how you want to fill these cupcakes and the method you are going to use to fill them. If, say, you are going to cut a plug out of the cupcakes and fill them with some red colored cream filling, or some cherry pie filling mixed with almond extract, then the cupcakes can be whatever flavor/color you want. If you are going to be like me, and poke some red stuff (ie warmed jam or Jell-o to make a poke cake) all over the cake, chose a light batter so that people can see the red soaked into the cake.

Next, you fill the cupcakes. Now, you don’t have to fill them, but it really looks nice to have some red stuff in there for when people bite down. Like I said, you can make your own cream (recipe at end) and dye it appropriate colors, or you can use some chopped cherry pie filling from a can mixed with some almond extract. If you do either of these methods, cut a plug out from your cupcakes and fill them.

Heat until the jam is thin.

Now, rather than this, I took an easier route with these. I decided to try poke cupcakes, which usually means that you poke the cupcakes with a toothpick and pour something thinned out over them to be soaked down into the cake. The most common thing to pour over is Jell-o, either strawberry or cherry. But I went one step easier, and used raspberry jam heated (carefully!) in the microwave. If you do this, be sure to buy jam and not preserves, because preserves don't melt in the same way.  It was fast, easy, and made the vanilla cupcake taste rather like a thumbprint cookie. But, instead of just poking, I actually used a syringe to inject the cupcakes with the jam, since it was still a little thicker than Jell-o (the same syringe as in my Mini Tortuga Rum Cakes, if you want to see detailed syringe pictures).  

I'm not trying to be spooky with this pic, I didn't realize the flash was on...
Don't mind my messy table...

The syringe sort of looks like an overgrown reverse mosquito, forcing blood in rather than sucking it out. And I learned something very important. When you do this, with jam at least, withdraw the syringe tip slowly, otherwise the jam will come gushing back out of the hole like this:

This isn't tragic, they are Halloween cupcakes after all. If this happens, just be a little more careful when you frost, because you want the icing surface to be as white as possible. You'll notice that I poked anywhere from 1-3 holes per cupcake. I think 2 holes worked out ideal. If you are going to use Jell-o, you can still use the syringe, but it will have an easier time soaking into the cake than the jam, so you can just poke with a toothpick and let the liquid soak in.

Now you can frost. You don’t need to do much with the frosting itself, so you can use white icing from a tub if you wish, or a basic buttercream, or you can slap on a Swiss meringue buttercream or 7 minute frosting…really whatever you feel like, as long as it is white. When you choose your frosting, go ahead and frost your cupcakes smoothly, not in a terribly thick layer.

Now, you poke holes in the frosting and add “blood” and this is really where it helps to have a red filling that can double as blood on the top of the cupcake. Make 2 holes in the frosting that look like a vampire’s bite mark, and fill them with your “blood”, dribbling blood away from the holes. Voila! Easy vampire cupcakes. I rushed them a little bit, so they aren't as pretty as I would have liked, but you get the general idea...

My apartment was unseasonably hot, and my icing started to melt!

And then when you cut it open, there is a nice amount of bloodiness in the cake:

In this particular cupcake, I managed to line up the bite puncture wounds perfectly with the jam in the cake. It looks cool, but it wasn't intentional, and isn't necessary. The only way anyone would notice is if they split the cupcake down the middle anyway.

To complete the theme, because I was determined to tie it in somehow, I made some “slayer” cupcakes, settling on a "stake through the heart" theme: assemble them the same way as the vampire cupcakes up through the frosting part. After the layer of white frosting is down, take some of your frosting and dye it red. Then, pipe a heart onto the top of the cupcake, and put a stake through it (in this case, a pretzel stick). 

If you think the cupcake is a little ambiguous, you can always write “Stake the <3” on them instead of just the heart, like I did. And if you want, you can ground up some Oreo “ashes” for decoration around the edges, because you, my friend, have just dusted a vamp.

Is this sophisticated decorating? Not at all. Marshmallow fondant would probably make a nicer surface than the icing, but I just didn't have the patience. Ditto for the heart. A chocolate-dipped pretzel rod would have made a better Mr. Pointy. I could have dribbled the jam a bit more artistically. But you don't have to go nuts for a simple theme. After all, everything doesn't need to look like the Cake Boss did it. I don't know about you, but my baking time is always competing with other things. When I made these, I was simultaneously baking and decorating cupcakes, getting dinner together, assembling a Halloween costume, and reading articles for work. But these cupcakes work with my schedule. They are easy, cute, and get the point across. 

This recipe is actually a Twinkie filling copycat recipe that has been floating around the internet for years in many different places.

Ingredients

• 1-7oz jar marshmallow cream2 tsp hot water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 C shortening
• 1/3 C powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Dissolve the salt in the hot water and allow it to cool down to room temp
2. Whip all ingredients except the salt water until fluffy
3. Slowly add the salt water and whip well until fully combined and fluffy
4. Add dye gel if desired

Pumpkin Blondies

Hands down, my favorite flavor of the Fall is pumpkin -- pies, bars, cakes, soups, you name it, I love it. My Autumn baking season, roughly from September until Thanksgiving, is positively dominated by pumpkin in all its many permutations, and this post is no exception. Last year, I modified a pumpkin cookie recipe with great  success, so this year I decided to try my hand at some pumpkin bars, which are more like blondies due to their moist, dense texture. I modified a basic recipe from Martha Stewart, changing around the proportion of pumpkin, as well as the amounts and kinds of sugar, spices, and some of the mix-ins. Like my cookies, I added butterscotch chips to these in lieu of the chocolate chips that the original recipe calls for, because the combination of pumpkin and butterscotch is just too darn good to pass up!


Although this recipe is a general Fall recipe, and not Halloween-specific per se, Halloween and pumpkins are intimately linked in North America, so I'd like to take a few moments and delve into another Halloween historical interlude at the point where pumpkins and Halloween converge: the Jack-o'-Lantern.

A popular legend surrounding the Jack-o'-Lantern comes originally from Ireland. Although the specifics of the story can vary, they all follow the same relative story arc, and they all involve a sneaky and rather unsavory individual known as Jack the Smith, or "Stingy Jack." As one version of the story goes, Stingy Jack had a run-in with the Devil, who had determined that it was Jack's time to die. Jack shrewdly requested a last drink at the pub, and the Devil obliged. Since Jack had already frittered away all of his money, he convinced the Devil to change shape into a silver coin in order to pay for the drink. Once the Devil did so, Jack snatched him up and placed him in a wallet next to a crucifix, which sapped the Devil of his powers. In other versions of this story, Jack tricks the Devil into climbing an apple tree and surrounds the base with crosses. But however the story is woven, it always comes to the point where Jack has the Devil trapped and at his mercy. At this point, in exchange for the Devil's freedom, Jack extracted a promise that the Devil will never collect his soul for Hell.

Many years later, Stingy Jack dies, and herein lies the problem: he was too unsavory of a person to go to Heaven, and because of the Devil's promise, he also couldn't go to Hell. Doomed to forever walk in the dark nether region between Heaven and Hell, a frightened Jack asked the Devil how he would be able to see where he was going as he traveled alone, and the Devil tossed him an eternally burning ember from the fires of Hell to light his path and serve as a warning for others. Stingy Jack placed the ember in a hollowed out turnip, and made a lantern to light his way. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern" which was eventually contracted into "Jack-o'-Lantern."

Slightly less glamorous, Jack-o'-Lantern may have also been a generic reference to night watchmen who roamed the streets and castles of the British Isles in the mid-17th century. Whether this practice has its roots in the old Irish legend has not been established.

The term Jack-o'-Lantern has another meaning, the phenomenon of ignis fatuus,  the mysterious lights appearing over bogs and marshes which were believed to be ghostly in origin and thought to resemble a flickering candle or lantern.  What was once thought to be a byproduct of paranormal activity is today generally attributed to the chemical reactions of the organic decay that occurs in bogs -- the oxidation of phosphine, which is highly combustible in the presence of oxygen, ignites methane and results in ephemeral fires.

The first Jack-o'-Lanterns were carved in the UK out of turnips and swedes during All Hallows Eve, and placed on the doorstep to ward off the evil spirits that would roam the earth on the one night when the veil between worlds was thinnest. When Irish immigrants came to America in the mid-19th century, they brought the tradition with them but transfered the carving to pumpkins, which were larger and plentiful.The first extant reference to Jack-o'-Lanterns being carved vegetable lanterns dates back to 1837, and a specific connection to North American Halloween is established by 1866.

This recipe is fairly easy to make. The ingredients list is long because I always prefer to add individual spices as opposed to using the "pumpkin pie spice" found in stores. But the steps are short and simple.

First, gather everything you need, including the spices. For this recipe, I used a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice, although you can substitute cloves for the allspice if you wish.

You'll notice that I am using whole nutmegs. I really like the flavor (and smell) of freshly ground nutmeg, so I grate it fresh. But you can use the pre-ground stuff, and it'll turn out just fine.

This is what the inside of a whole nutmeg looks like

Then, you combine all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl, so that they are well blended. 

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.

At this point you add in the egg, vanilla, and pumpkin until just combined. It'll look chunky, but it's all good, don't keep beating it trying to make the batter smooth. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Fold in those butterscotch chips and pecans, and spread it in the pan. The batter is thick, so you will have to actively push it to all the corners. Make sure everything is even!

And then you bake them up for about 40 minutes. You'll know they are done when they just start to pull away from the pan. A toothpick inserted in the center should still have just a few moist crumbs.

I'd cool them completely before cutting, because they need to firm up. I'd suggest at least an hour or so at room temp, followed by at least a half hour in the fridge, if not a full hour.

I was a little worried about this recipe at first, because when they baked, they puffed out like pumpkin bread -- which was fine, but I was really hoping for a brownie consistency. But, by the time they cooled, they sank back down into a lovely, dense and moist bar. Once again, I think that the combination of pumpkin and butterscotch chips works wonderfully, these bars were incredibly tasty, and easy to put together and bake. These are a great and quick Fall treat!

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

• 2 1/3 C flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 sticks butter, unsalted, softened
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 C dark brown sugar (can substitute light)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-15 oz can pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
• 11 oz butterscotch chips
• 1 C chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F, and spray a 9x13" pan with butter spray
2. Combine dry ingredients into a bowl (flour, spices, baking soda, salt) and set aside
3. Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy
4. Add in egg, vanilla and pumpkin and beat until combined (mixture may look chunky)
5. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined
6. Fold in butterscotch chips and pecans
7. Spread batter into prepared pan. The batter is thick by this point, so you will have to push it, but try not to pack it down. Try to spread as evenly as you can, so that the batter is of uniform thickness.
8. Bake about  40 minutes. An inserted toothpick should come out almost clean (a few crumbs), and the bars should just begin pulling away from the sides.
9. Cool in the pan before cutting. I recommend keeping them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before cutting them.