Recipes for October

Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup for Halloween

This recipe comes from Not Martha and they are SO good. The cinnamon syrup is good too and goes so well with the pancakes. My kids love drawing with the syrup. I couldn't make them fast enough.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
orange food coloring gel

In a large bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.
In a medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolk with a fork. Add egg, milk, pumpkin puree and vanilla; mix well. Add melted butter. If the butter is hot, add it slowly or you will cook your egg yolk. Add a bit of the orange food coloring to the wet mixture at this point. Add more until it's about as orange as you can stand. Stir this mixture into dry ingredients, just until combined.
Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat and grease lightly with vegetable oil. For each pancake, spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto the hot griddle. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the edges look dry. Turn over and cook until golden brown. The pancakes are delicate so stick to making small or medium sized pancakes.

Black Cinnamon Syrup

1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup water
black food coloring gel

In a saucepan combine white sugar, brown sugar, all-purpose flour and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients together. Add vanilla extract and water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Be really careful while boiling sugar, keep a bowl of ice water nearby just in case. As it heats squirt in a little of the black food coloring and mix in, add more until it's as dark as can be. It doesn't take much. Allow to boil for a few moments until the mixture has noticeably thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to put into a squirt bottle (of the ketchup style). You can make it the night before and warm it by dipping the squeeze bottle in a bowl of warm water. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.
Decorate the pancakes with the syrup. Spiders, spider webs and bats work out well. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.

Easy Witch Hat Treats

These easy treats are made from Keebler Fudge stripe cookies (turned upside down), Hershey Kisses attached with orange icing.

Idea from Explore, Dream, Discover.

Spider Web Snacks

pret­zel sticks
white chocolate/bark candy coating
choco­late (baker’s, candy coat­ing, or chips would prob­a­bly all work)
raisins
bag­gie or pas­try bag
wax paper

Lay out your pret­zels on the wax paper in “star­burst” arrange­ments of 6-8 pret­zels. After melt­ing your white chocolate bark coat­ing, pastry bag (or place in a bag­gie and cut the cor­ner off). Start pip­ing your white choco­late in the mid­dle of the pret­zel arrange­ment, mak­ing sure to coat all the pretzels.

Con­tinue pip­ing out­ward around the pret­zels...

until you have a web.

Coat raisins with melted reg­u­lar choco­late. Place in web on a stable place such as in the middle. Sprinkle with candy sprinkles, if you wish.  Let harden or place in the fridge for a few min­utes until the choco­late is hard.

Then, gen­tly peel back the wax paper.…and eat!

Spider Web Cupcakes

This idea comes from Mom Endeavors.

Some plastic spiders would be perfect with these!

Cupcakes

White Frosting

Decorating gel (I used Wilton's Sparkle Gel in black)

Toothpick

Frost your cupcakes with the icing.

Using your decorating gel, draw three or four concentric circles on the top of your cupcake. They do not have to be perfect.

Drag the end of a toothpick from the center to the edge of the cupcake, about six times around the circle. This will create a web effect.

Olive Bat Open-Faced Sandwiches

photo from Fowl Single File

Make any sandwich you would like.

Cut a crescent out of a piece of cheddar cheese.

OR

Use a small cup to cut a circle out of a piece of cheddar cheese.

Cut sliced olives in half for the bats.

Arrange on top of sandwich and serve.

This idea comes from Fowl Single File and Little Nummies. 

Jack O' Lantern Quesadillas

Just a sharp knife to cut out the jack o' lantern shapes turns a regular quesadilla into a Halloween lunch or snack. This idea comes from Monster Mama.

Soul Cakes for All Soul's Day

During the Middle Ages in England, on the night before All Saints Day, or Hallowmas, peasants and children called "soulers" would go about town singing and praying for the souls of the dead. They would stop at homes and beg for a "soul cake" and promise in return to pray for the household's deceased family members to be released from purgatory. If homeowners did not give out cakes it was believed their home would be cursed. And this my friends is thought to be the origination of trick or treating. There are many recipes for soul cakes from a small round cake to a doughnut shaped treat.

Soul, Soul, a soul cake!

I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!

One for Peter, two for Paul,

three for Him what made us all!

Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul, and three for Him who made us all.

1 cup butter
3 3/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
6 tablespoons milk
powdered sugar, to sprinkle on top

Using a pastry blender cut 1 c. of butter into 3 3/4 cups of flour. Blend the sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and allspice into the flour-butter mixture. In a separate bowl beat eggs, vinegar and milk together.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. Kneed thoroughly to form a stiff dough. You really have to work this dough, I thought there was no way it was moist enough, but once I mashed it all up it was just right. Roll out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut out 3 inch circles with a cookie cutter or glass. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while still warm. I added sugar skulls to them.
This recipe is from Catholic Cuisine.

Jack 'O Lantern Snacks

These cute Jack-o-Lantern Toasts are fun and easy to make. The first step is to take a piece of bread and using a cookie cutter cut out a pumpkin shape.

You can just cut it out with a knife, but a cookie cutter is a lot easier.
Take your pumpkin-shaped bread and toast it.

Meanwhile color cream cheese orange with some food coloring.
Spread the cream cheese on the toast to cover.

We used candy corn, chocolate chips and raisins to make faces on our Jack-o-lanterns.
You could use other candies instead.

Indian Corn Rice Crispy Treats

Follow the directions on the back of the Rice Krispie box. Once you get to the point that the Rice Krispies are well coated, stir in about 2 cups of candy corn. Use wax paper to press down evenly into a 9x13 pan. This idea comes from my kind of crafts.

This recipe is from Cooking with My Kid and is a very tasty variation of the typical roasted pumpkin seeds.

Caramelized Pumpkin Seeds

1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh pumpkin seeds (cleaned and patted dry)
2 to 3 tablespoons brown sugar
pinch of kosher salt
olive oil cooking spray

Place pumpkin seeds in a dry non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Toast them in the pan, constantly shifting them around so that they roast evenly and don’t stick to the pan. When they start to pop and peel, take one out and taste it. Be careful...make sure it’s cool enough first. If it’s crunchy it’s done. Turn the heat down to low and spray the seeds with olive oil cooking spray and then spoon sugar into pan and stir seeds up as sugar melts and sticks to the seeds. Turn heat off and sprinkle with salt. Let cool and serve!