Hosting a Halloween Party is Fun...

... and admittedly quite tiring.

This year, I hosted my first ever Halloween party. A Halloween party where everyone comes dressed up and ready to party away isn't French by essence, so the American half of me was really the one hosting it.

Long before I started getting everything ready for the evening, I was already dreaming about intricately-decorated cupcakes, sugar cookies shaped like tombstones lying on a bed of Mont Blanc-ish "worms", and all the other great snack-type desserts that appear in Halloween cooking articles. However, I guess that people do that as a job, or have a few full days ahead of them to make it all perfect. I, on the other hand, couldn't really use my Halloween party as a way to get out of work for two days, so all my work was done starting 7pm on the 30th.

I settled on pretty simple things to start with: salty olive pound cake (green olives look like eyes...right?) and a pesto pasta salad. The sweet part was more exciting, though. Cupcakes and sugar cookies were on the list, with special Halloween sprinkles as toppings. 

Spot the missing cupcake!

Power-cooking is fun, but when you start at 7pm, it gets pretty old fast. In about 5 hours total, I ended up making two olive pound cakes, one pasta salad, 30 sugar cookies, and 36 cupcakes. It probably doesn't sound like much to those who bake for parties pretty often, but for first-timers such as myself it can get confusing. The 36 cupcakes were meant to cater to all of my friends' tastes, and I think they did: 12 vanilla / vanilla, 12 vanilla / chocolate, and 12 chocolate / chocolate.

Once everything was baked and set up, I must say I was happy about it all. My pre-Halloween baking marathon may have been a challenge, but it was just preparation...for next year's Halloween!

Recipes:

"Cake aux Olives"

4 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup dry white wine

250g flour

125g grated swiss cheese

250g green olives, pitted

10g baking powder

salt & pepper

(sorry about the Metric)

Beat together eggs, oil, wine, salt, and pepper until foamy.

Add flour, baking powder, cheese, and olives.

Bake at 350° for an hour or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Sour cream chocolate cupcakes and Sour cream chocolate frosting

Sour cream vanilla cupcakes: I substituted the cocoa in the above recipe for sugar, and they turned out great.

Vanilla Frosting

NB: I'm really lost. This is my 10th try at vanilla frosting, or something. And it may be French butter, or French confectioner's sugar, or both, but I NEVER get it right. I follow all the directions, have tried making it with a handheld mixer and by hand, but it gets too runny every single time...

(makes 1 cup)

4 tbsp butter

2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 pinch salt

Sugar Cookies

(makes 10 seriously huge cookies)

1.5 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup brown sugar & 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup softened butter

1 egg

Mix sugar and butter, then add egg and flour mixture. Bake 15 minutes at 350°.

These sugar cookies are really addictive and very very chewy. I'm just warning you.

Just Can't Get Enough - Attack of the Chocolate-Chip Blondie

You'll notice there's no picture accompanying this post.

Unlike the kouign amann, I didn't mess anything up this time--I ate it up.

Whenever I feel like eating something sweet and have chocolate chips on hand, I always crave the same thing: a chocolate-chip blondie.

For those unfamiliar with blondies (you won't be for long, trust me), they're like a huge rectangular cookie. They basically look like a brownie, but taste like a chewy, thick cookie.

Hungry yet?

I brought out my Pyrex rectangular glass pan, and the magic started. A blondie can be made in 15 minutes, baking time not included. That's a tiny 15 minutes compared to what you get. The recipe comes from Martha Stewart (again, I know, but who doesn't like Martha's recipes?) and is a true crowd-pleaser from what I've experienced.

The way I do it is the following:

4 tbsp melted butter

1 c. flour

1/3 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 c. semisweet chocolate chips, or a mix of chocolate and butterscotch chips--even better

Mix melted butter and sugars, add egg and vanilla, and finally add flour.

Next, add chocolate chips or butterscotch chips, mix, and pour into a parchment paper-lined rectangular pan.

Sprinkle with a handful of chocolate chips, and bake for around 35 minutes.

(I should be writing something along the lines of "Let the blondie cool before slicing into pieces", but I actually think you should rip off a piece with your bare hands while it's still warm.)

Then, of course, it's all yours. I would recommend not telling anyone that you've made a blondie; they will be expecting to taste it but when that time comes, either you will have eaten the whole thing already, or you'll just be mad that he or she is stealing a slice of your blondie heaven.

No, really, it's that good.

Cake Walk Cupcakes

When I think of elementary school cake walks, I think of cupcakes with sprinkles and a lot of frosting.

I also remember that I "wasn't supposed to eat cupcakes made by someone I didn't know". Which meant that most of the time, I didn't even get near them. But those sprinkles, those heaps of frosting... Translated into sugar content, though, I understand how looking at them from afar can be better. But still, the multicolored sprinkles on those cupcakes seemed better than anything. 

For some reason, I have always had a thing for sprinkles--it all started the day my maman and I ended up at the O'Hare Hilton because of a delayed flight. I may have been 5 years old, but I can still picture the donut I ate the next morning. I can't quite remember the taste, but the sprinkles covering the top of it definitely had an impact on my future tastes.

When I found a recipe for sour-cream chocolate cupcakes, I was curious as to whether or not I could transform them into the cupcakes of my cake-walk dreams. I bought some reduced fat sour cream, hoping it would work out just as fine--and it did. The cupcakes were really easy to make, the recipe was very easy to follow, and for once my frosting came out just fine. 

After topping the cake with an ice cream scoop-worth of frosting, I brought out my special sprinkle box. 

It has daisies, hearts, butterflies, and wildflowers--I think the end result is pretty cute.

Even better than those cupcakes from the "unknown parents".

Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes - makes about 14

1/2 cup boiling water

1/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream (I used 3%)

1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine water, butter, sugar, cocoa. Beat until sugar is dissolved.

Add dry ingredients, alternating with egg, sour cream, and vanilla extract. 

Fill cupcake cups about half full and bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 350°F.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

1 cup chocolate chunks

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups confectioner's sugar

Melt chocolate, stir in butter, sour cream, vanilla and salt. Slowly add confectioner's sugar until achieving desired consistency.

Birthday Kouign Amann

My sister's birthday isn't until Wednesday, but she was spending the weekend in France and I really wanted her to have a full homemade birthday dinner before leaving.

Herb-crusted salmon with baby spinach salad was the main course (thanks, Martha Stewart) and I have to admit it was really good.

For dessert, I wanted to make something my sister liked (because, you know, that's what birthday cakes are for), and she doesn't like cooked fruit mixed with dairy products. Once that was out of the picture, I also ruled out anything too heavy or cream-filled.

In the end, I settled on a dessert I know she likes: a kouign amann. It's a specialty from Brittany, and is a caramelized cake filled with salted butter and sugar. Well, normally.

I didn't take any pictures of my two individual kouign amann because they weren't what I had hoped--I can't really speak of caramelized anything. After blowing out her birthday candles, my sister assured me that even if it didn't taste like a kouign amann, it was a pretty tasty crystallized brioche.

If you want to give the kouign amann a go, because it's a delicious dessert when you get it right, there are a few sites you can visit:

Kouign Amann in French 

David Lebovitz makes a Kouign Amann

Some would say that you can only find a real kouign amann in a tiny hidden patisserie in a tiny hidden village on the west coast, but I honestly doubt that.

Good Luck!