Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) No Dip Cake Bites

Have you noticed all the Day of the Dead stuff in stores lately? In all transparency I really didn't know much about this holiday except that it was of Mexican origin so I decided to do a little research.  

Day of the Dead aka Día de los Muertos is indeed a Mexican holiday that focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember those who have died and help support their spiritual journey.   

I was curious about all the skulls decorated with bright colors and flowers and according to experts (aka Wikipedia) "people go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them." 

 "Plans for the day are made throughout the year, including gathering the goods to be offered to the dead. During the 3-day period families usually clean and decorate graves which often include orange Mexican marigolds sometimes called Flor de Muerto (Flower of Dead). These flowers are thought to attract souls of the dead to the offerings. It is also believed the bright petals with a strong scent can guide the souls from cemeteries to their family homes."

"Families will also offer trinkets or the deceased's favorite candies on the grave. Some families have ofrendas in homes, usually with foods such as candied pumpkin, pan de muerto ("bread of dead"), and sugar skulls; and beverages such as atole. The ofrendas are left out in the homes as a welcoming gesture for the deceased."

So now I know and decided to make some of my own sugar skulls! I opted for no dip cake bites.

Dipping treats is my least favorite thing to do so I found a work  around.  I started with some cupcakes.  Crumble and mix with the frosting in a bowl.

Use a skull silicone ice cube tray and outline skull with melted white chocolate or vanilla melting wafers.  Don't fill it all the way with the chocolate - you want to leave space to fill it.  Refrigerate for 5-10 minutes until chocolate is hardened.

Fill mold with cupcake mixture then cover with more melted chocolate.

Refrigerate for another 10 minutes then pop skull out of mold.

Decorate with fun sprinkles and/or more melting wafers.  I added a little edible silver spray to finish them.

Day of the Dead falls is October 31, Nov 1, and 2.  Kinda neat that it coincides with Halloween!

Do you celebrate or decorate for Day of the Dead? If so share what you do! 

Hay más tiempo que vida which means there is more time than life - so very true.  Enjoy each day to its fullest!

Happy days to you and thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Skull Cake Bites (no dipping required!)

Less than a week to Halloween peeps! Halloween treats have been showing up across the interwebs since the beginning of September (or earlier!) so I figured I'd add some colorful skull cake bites to the mix. 

I do have to admit that although I love cake bites and cake pops, I loathe dipping them in melted candy wafers or chocolate. 

Maybe I just don't have the patience, but I really really REALLY don't like the dipping process. It's messy, you have to be quick and you need to get the melted candy just right (not too think or thin).  And since mine never come out perfect, I just decide I don't like to make them.  (I also don't like dipping or coating petit fours!)

But I found a solution!  

Use a candy mold (or in this case a dollar store ice cube tray) in whatever form or shape you like. Mix up your cake and icing like you would for regular cake bites but instead of dipping the cake mixture into melted candy - melt the candy and outline the mold.  Once it hardens add your cake mixture to the cavity, then add more melted candy to cover it.  Refrigerate (or freeze) for 10 minutes then pop out of the mold.

Voila! No dip cake bites!

I sprayed my cake bite skulls with some pearl color mist in pearl to give the cake bites a shimmery shine.  

This is my favorite stuff of all times (and I don't even get any free product from Wilton!).  

Wilton makes it in many colors and it's a quick way to color your treats - like edible spray paint.  

SO fun.

And of course the cake inside makes these little skulls so tasty.  I tinted the cake mixture red because they are little skulls and well, it's Halloween!

I have like a gagillion candy molds and ice cube trays so I'm going to have to use this technique for more cake bites.  It could be tricky making cake pops - but depending on the mold it could work too or you can add a little more melted candy to the back of the cake bite to attach a stick.   

These little guys are a Halloween gift for a special friend. How cute are they in a re-purposed little box?!  Add Halloween stickers and some spooky candies and you have a gift that's way better than any store-bought candy box.  Since the cake bites are easy to put together (and no dipping needed!) make a bunch for your friends or this year's Halloween party!

No Dip Skull Cake Bites

by Michelle Clausen October-24-2016

Ingredients

• 5 cups of candy melts/wafers (1 cup of black, white, lime green, purple, orange)
• 2 cups of crumbled cake
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of frosting
• Red food color/gel
• Pearl Wilton Color Mist 
• Skull ice cube tray or mold

Instructions:

1. Mix cake crumbles with frosting and 2-3 drops of red food gel until well mixed.  Set aside.
2. Melt each color of candy wafer in microwave safe bowl in 10-20 second intervals until candy is melted.  Add to quart sized freezer bag.  Snip an end and coat skull mold with candy (ensure thick enough to coat all sides of mold but leave a space to allow for filling).  Tap mold to remove air bubbles and to make sure all parts of mold are coated well.  Reheat candy as needed.  Freeze mold for 5 minutes.
3. Remove mold from freezer and fill cavities with small ball of the cake mixture.  Press to cake fills mold cavity (see photos).  Cover with more melted candy.  Tap to cover evenly.  Freeze for 10-15 minutes.  
4. Pop cake bite out of mold.  
5. Spray with color mist.  Let dry 10 minutes.
6. Repeat with other colors.

Prep time: 1 and 1/2 hours Yield: 25-30 cake bites 

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Jack & Sally Cupcakes

Hello October and all that is pumpkin! I've been holding off on getting my pumpkin spice fix until it was officially October so now it's fair game!  And since it's pumpkin season, I had to make my favorite Pumpkin King.

Just like It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, The Nightmare Before Christmas movie is a must watch during the Halloween season  - and it works all the way into Christmas season too!

Jack Skellington aka the Pumpkin King and his sweetie Sally are one of my fav movie couples.

They remind me of me and my other half.  Jack is a dreamer and once he gets into something - he gets into that something.  Sounds very familiar.  Sally is more practical and but holds off on any judgement even when she's right.  That's definitely me although depending on who you ask probably debatable on the holding back part! 

Plus look how cute they are together!

And who can resist a skull head cupcake? 

I think Sally needs the her long hair and she looks a little wonky but hopefully a little recognizable.  And I made mini Jack and Sally too - just because.

Happy Fall everyone!  It really is my favorite season of the year.  Have a great week!

Sally and Jack Cupcakes

by Michelle Clausen October-7-2016

Ingredients

• 12 baked cupcakes and 12 mini cupcakes (use your favorite recipe or box mix)
• 1 can of vanilla frosting (tint 1/2 light blue)
• 1/2 cup black candy melts/wafers
• 1/2 cup black dark orange melts/wafers
• 1/4 cup vanilla candy melts wafers or white round sprinkles for mini cupcakes
• 1/4 cup red candy melts/wafers or small red heart sprinkles for mini cupcakes

Instructions:

1. Frost 1/2 of the cupcakes with white frosting and the other half with light blue frosting.
2. Melt each color of candy wafers in quart sized freezer bag in 15 second intervals in microwave until just melted.  Snip an end and pipe Jack and Sally details onto cupcakes.
3. For Sally mini cupcakes add white sprinkles as eyes and add dab of black candy for center and red heart sprinkles as mouth.

Prep time: 30 mins Yield: 12 large and 12 mini cupcakes

Coffin and Skeleton Mini Cakes

Only a week until Halloween! Are you ready? (and by ready meaning ready for another Halloweeny treat??

First off, have you seen the Cheetos Bag of Bones that Frito Lay has out right now? It's filled with white cheddar skeleton parts so you can build your own skeleton.  I searched down a bag and had to come up with something fun to make with them.

And if you have skeletons, you kinda need coffins right? These are made from a couple of things.  Cookies and creme sugar wafers make the basic coffin shape and the bottom of the coffin is chocolate graham crackers.  Cut into the shape you want and use melted black candy wafers (or you can use melted chocolate chips too) to glue the pieces together.

Once you have your edible coffins (now that's a weird word combo!), cut out a similar coffin shapes from a chocolate sheet cake.  I just did this by eye balling the size and trimming as needed.  Then frost with chocolate frosting.  You don't even have to be neat because it basically gets covered anyway!

Add some candies on top of the cake - not needed but it makes them more fun.  I used candy coated sunflower seeds in Fall/Halloween colors.  I use Sunny Seeds as they taste great and come in in so many colors and themes.

Then add your skeleton parts on top!

I never really thought I'd be crafting edible coffins - that just seems a little strange, but you know when you have edible skeleton parts handy, you have to fill a need!  

Happy Only 1 Week to Halloween to you all!  Curious, how many of you actually dress up for Halloween? (Meaning you specifically - not the kiddos!)

Glam Skeleton Head Brownie Cupcakes

So is anyone else kinda tired already of all the orange, black, and yellow colors for Halloween? I know right, it's barely October so how can I be bored with it already?? Probably because I've been over at Pinterest way too much lately and there's all sorts of Halloween treats and crafts being showcased over there, pretty much since the end of the summer.

But I 'm still excited for some Halloween treats - but just in some different colors.  Hence the glam'ed up skull cupcakes.

First some candy skulls - in pink, light blue, purple, white and black.  These are simple too, just add some candy melt to some ice cube tray molds- at let the candy re-harden.  I get alot of the molds for real cheap at dollar stores or Target.

I had wanted to make these glittery skulls, but didn't really have any edible glitter and guess what, I tried this homemade glitter (which is everywhere on Pinterest).  I'm not sure where the original idea comes from but it didn't really work for me.  Not "glittery" at all.

So instead I just brushed the skulls with a little water and dipped them in regular granulated sugar.  I guess it kinda works, but not really the look I had in my head.

Plus I thought they needed a little something-something, like pearl eyeballs.  Pearlized sprinkles always makes stuff fancy, no?

Twist a toothpick in the bottom and you have some instant cupcake toppers.  I added these to a boxed brownie mix baked as cupcakes.  Pipe some pink buttercream on top and add more black sprinkles and a few more pearl sprinkles.  If you have spider or skull candies, throw them on too.

And you can make a cute couple.  That's sorta halloween-y in a cute, spooky, fancy way right?

And Happy October peeps! Otherwise what I call "The Month of Pumpkin Spice Everything!" I loves me a pumpkin spice latte and all, but really pumpkin spice candy corn? or pumpkin spice Pringles?? pumpkin spice pasta???? pumpkin spice Seltzer???? That's just crazy talk.  Everytime I see another pumpkin spiced flavored something or other, this is what I have in my head:

Thanks for stopping by, always appreciated! Oh and if you have made homemade edible glitter and it worked for you, please let me know your secret! Is it magic??!

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