PASSIONATE RATIONS

From Blog Photos

Despite this just-past Halloween being disturbed by a record-setting Nor’easter storm that took out the power and heat, we managed to party by candlelight (a spooky throw-back to Halloweens of yore). Luckily, I had baked my cupcakes before the power went out.

Cupcakes are my favorite Halloween party treat for four reasons: (1) they are easy; (2) they are popular; (3) they are excellent vehicles for buttercream frosting; and (4) they are extremely versatile and, as such, can serve as both food and dramatic table-top decor.

With regard to this last point, this Halloween I discovered raspberry sauce (aka “fake blood”). I’m not a fan of cherry sauce (which can also be used) and had no idea that raspberry pie-filling is also available until I spotted it in Lily Vanilli’s book “A Zombie Ate My Cupcake” (which I recommend for all sorts of scary-yummy-cakey treats). Splatter a little sauce on your frosted cupcakes, add a little Wilton butcher knife (yes, Wilton makes adorable edible little butcher knives for Halloween use), and, voila, you have serial-killed cupcakes.

You can make cupcakes look like brains; set up little graveyard dioramas on their rounded surfaces; fill them with green frosting “guts”; pile them high with vanilla frosting “ghosts”; use stencils and sprinkles to dress them up with bats, witches, pumpkins, etc.; make them into monster heads or spiders; have gummy worms coming out of them like some decaying piece of meat…. They can be chocolate, vanilla, golden, spice, red velvet, nutty, savory….

With cupcakes on the menu, I have Halloween party favors set for years to come.

(But, really, it’s all about the frosting.)