Halloween!

That super sugary day is coming quickly.  I don't hardly have time to bake anymore, so I stayed up late (I have the bedtime of a "Quilting Club" president) to do some catching up. The orange icing is a little "creamsicle", but I did the best I could with my cheapo food coloring.

I thought I would share some of my Halloween memories from when I was a kid....

Normally, kids dress up like ballerinas, ninjas, and pirates and walk around collecting candy in the biggest pillow cases they can find.

Not when I was growing up.

Every good presbyterian kid knows that Halloween is really Reformation Day.  I've mentioned before that I am a P.K. ("preacher's kid" for those of you who've never been to Christian summer camp or "iYouth for Awesome Praise and True Friendship" youth group), and my dad would have had a conniption if we had dressed up to support that pagan holiday.

So instead of being a harmless ballerina, or worse a woodland fairy with sparkly wings (I really wanted some... like bad...), I dressed up like I was from the middle-ages and hung out with the other creepy church kids.  It took a really long time for my brothers and I to start trick-or-treating, and once my younger brother got started, he was never going to stop.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad my dad taught me just about everything from Church history. I nailed History 102 to the wall (no pun intended Martin Luther fans...) because I already knew most of what Dr. Pierre lectured about.  Dad probably saved me from childhood obesity as well.  Think of all that candy I missed out on!

Anyways, now that I am married and have my own little apartment, I will be leaving the light on for the little ballerinas and pirates. I even went to the store today and bought the candy! I am one pumpkin away from Halloween perfection!!!

And, I am slowly working my way towards my winter fat storage.  It's only natural to gain weight around winter time, bears do it... and it's almost November, so if you haven't started yet, you better get to it! Start with these rich chocolate cupcakes with vanilla (creamsicle colored) icing!

Recipe is courtesy of JoyofBaking.com.  Also, try her vanilla icing, it's quite good!

Enjoy!

Where has my life gone...

Unemployment was not really that fun.  I mean, I had just moved to a new town, so I didn't know anybody.  I didn't know where anything was, and wouldn't want to go by myself anyways.  My husband worked an 8-6 job; it was just lonely.  The apartment could only be so clean, I could only bake so many cookies.... and I was definitely not going to work out more than once a day (which turned to zero times a day after a visit to the back doctor...).

Now I have a job, and as you can see from the date of my last post, it soaks up every moment of my day.  Usually, I wake up at 6 so that I can get to work early.  I do this mostly for the copier...  If you're a teacher, you know what I mean.

Today there was finally a respite from the grind.  Appropriate for a Sunday.  So I baked some more whoopie pies.  These are AWESOME!!  They are from JoyofBaking.com.  The cookies are a lot softer than the last recipe I tried, and the icing is tastier too.  I'm not a big fan of crisco in icing, but it really does make it nice and fluffy, and doesn't taste too bad either!! Crisco can do anything...

(photo courtesy of Joyofbaking.com)

I probably ate three of these in the amount of batter I consumed.  I was wondering why I ended up with an odd number of cookies...  Oh well... P.S. I bought one of those cool, slidey ice cream scoops. So all my whoopie cookies were the same size, and they look amazing!

The ice cream scoop inspired me to make more meat balls this week.  I am perfecting my own recipe.  It is coming along, but could still use some tweeks here and there.

I hope this reminds my readers I'm still here, and I will try to post more often.  P.P.S. this week someone (cough, cough) will be 24.  While someone else (cough Mr. Gingerbread cough) turned 30 last week.  He's half way to 60, and I'm almost half way to 50... yikes...