Scary, for #LetsLunch

I've made a few Halloween cakes in years past, mostly for Fall Festival cakewalks and class parties, and I managed to find a few pictures of my favorites. The pumpkin beauty, below, was from pre-blogging days or I would have had a two-part series on making it. It involved three batches of my signature pound cake, plus three batches of buttercream. There were three smaller pumpkin cakes, too. I baked them in tube pans and Bundt pans, cemented them together to resemble a sphere, and decorated with orange buttercream and green fondant. My husband, daughter and I spent an evening in the kitchen, baking and decorating. 

The one I wish I had a picture of, but didn't think to do that (again, pre-blogging days) was a chocolate Bundt cake with chocolate glaze topped with a chocolate spiderweb. It was elegant and spooky and had a come-hither chocolate-y-ness about it. I may need to remake that one and take a picture of it. The cake was baked using my go-to chocolate pound cake recipe.

Pumpkin cakes. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The following year, I decided to ease up on the buttercream and pound cake and came up with a Graveyard cake made with Pepperidge Farm Milano "tombstones" and Peeps ghosts. Here's my very homemade-looking cake:

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I was reminded of this very homemade cake recently when I received this picture from the fine folks at Driscoll's berries - a fruit-enhanced graveyard cake. The ghosts are strawberries dipped in white chocolate, how clever is that? Here's the recipe for this ghoulishly good cake.

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books.

Before you go, please click over to my #SeriousSandwich giveaway post to win a copy of Chef Emeril Lagasse's new cookbook, "Emeril's Kicked-Up Sandwiches." Drawing is Friday evening, so the clock is ticking...

#LetsLunch is a monthly Twitter party with a global group of food bloggers. Here's a partial list of October's participants:

Lisa’s Pretzel fingers at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Lucy’s fabulously spooky Halloween cakes at A Cook and Her Books
Annabelle’s Halloween Spice Cookies at A Glass of Fancy
Linda’s Pumpkin Spiced Flan at Spicebox Travels
Rashda’s Spooktacular Stuffed Pumpkin at Hot Curries & Cold Beer

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

Halloween Cakes Past

Glass pumpkins from Atlanta Botanical Garden. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



I've made a few Halloween cakes in years past, mostly for Fall Festival cakewalks and class parties, and I managed to find a few pictures of some of my favorites. These are a few years old and the quality isn't great, but they do give a good idea of how I made the cakes.

The one I wish I had a picture of, but didn't think to do that (pre-blogging days) was a chocolate Bundt cake with chocolate glaze topped with a chocolate spiderweb. It was elegant and spooky and had a come-hither chocolate-y-ness about it. I may need to remake that one and take a picture of it. The cake was baked using my go-to chocolate pound cake recipe.

Now here's a cake, or cakes that I'm pretty sure I will never make again. Three recipes of pound cake baked in all sizes of Bundt pans, cemented together with buttercream and decorated with orange buttercream and green fondant. It was a family project and it was incredible - the largest of these cakes was unbelievably heavy.

Pumpkin pound cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Pumpkin cakes. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

And finally, the ever-popular graveyard cake made with Pepperidge Farm Milano "tombstones" and Peeps ghosts. Here's my very homemade-looking cake:

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I was reminded of this very homemade cake recently when I received this picture from the fne folks at Driscoll's berries - a fruit-enhanced graveyard cake. The ghosts are strawberries dipped in white chocolate, how clever is that? To learn how to make this ghoulishly good cake, check out this story. http://www.examiner.com/american-food-in-atlanta/spooky-graveyard-cake-for-halloween-parties

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books.

The Amazing and True Adventures of Squash and Pumpkin



Squash and Pumpkin do some light cleaning. Susan Loper/Thoughtful Consumption

My friend and blogging buddy Susan has a whimsical wit and a CSA subscription. Some folks open up their produce boxes and see supper on the hoof (so to speak); Susan sees comic opportunity. Last fall, she took the weekly cucurbitae and had a little fun, with a post called “More Fun with Squash and Pumpkin.”

Squash and Pumpkin plan Halloween mischief. Susan Loper/Thoughtful Consumption

Just like other vegetable tales that met with mainstream success (“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” “VeggieTales” and many many movies with Sylvester Stallone), Squash and Pumpkin sprouted sequels:

Even more fun with Squash and Pumpkin

Squash and Pumpkin Ride Again!

Squash and Pumpkin Keep it Real

Squash and Pumpkin bundle up for cooler weather. Susan Loper/Thoughtful Consumption

If you need a seasonal giggle, or inspiration before decorating your house for fall, visit Squash and Pumpkin over at Thoughtful Consumption. Thanks, Susan, for letting me use your pictures and tell another corner of the world about S&P!

A Special Dark Halloween: Chocolate Drizzled Poached Pears

Elegant and eerie poached pears with chocolate drizzle. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 
Americans eat 12 pounds of chocolate each year and as Halloween approaches, I think I'm already into my 13th pound of the stuff. I love chocolate in all its candy forms - Reese's peanut butter cups, M&M's, Hershey's miniatures - these go into the "approved for mommy" stack as I sort through my daughter's Halloween candy haul.


While I'm familiar with the sight and smell of chocolate in its processed form, the botanical form was a mystery until a recent visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden's exhibit "Chocolate: From Seed to Sweet." Through a series of interactive outdoor exhibits, my girls and I learned the process from the bloom on the cacao tree to the chocolate bars in the girls' plastic orange pumpkins.

The Cacao Pod by the Atlanta Botanical Garden


Walking through the outdoor exhibition, we learned about the taxi-cab yellow seed pods of the cacao trees. The farmers harvest the seed pods, then grind them into chocolate liquor, which is then separated into cacao butter and powder. The exhibit stations are designed for children to roast, winnow, grind, mix and mold the cacao beans. And I learned this interesting fact - cacao ( (ca-COW) refers to the tree and beans inside the seed pods; cocoa refers to the byproducts of the coca bean - cocoa butter and cocoa powder. And here's another factoid - each cacao pod is about the size of a pineapple and holds enough seeds to make about seven milk chocolate or two dark chocolate bars.

That concentrated dark chocolate appears at my house each Halloween in the form of Hershey's Miniatures. When I was young, I gave away the Special Darks and gobbled up all the milk chocolate. These days, while I still have a taste for the milder milk chocolate, I have a hankering for dark chocolate, and Special Dark is the way to go.




Hershey's Miniatures  chocolate by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



When I weary of eating the chocolate straight, I make a luscious sauce that can be used in many ways - on ice cream, on spoons, on fingers, but is delightful on a perfectly poached pear. This is the very essence of a simple, elegant, seasonal dessert. A ripe pear, poached in a flavored syrup, caressed with chocolate. It's divine.




Pears by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Poached Pears

Take extra care when peeling the pears and be sure to trim the bottoms 1/4 of an inch so that they sit level on the plate.


2 quarts water


2 cups sugar


1 cup apple juice


1 cinnamon stick


3 slices lemon


6 pears such as Bartlett or Bosc, peeled, bottoms trimmed 1/4 inch


1. Place all ingredients, except for pears, in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Gently place pears in liquid and reduce heat to a simmer. Let cook for 20 minutes. Remove pears from liquid and serve with chocolate sauce.




Poached Pear by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Chocolate Sauce

24 Special Dark miniatures, unwrapped


4 ounces heavy cream


1 teaspoon vanilla


Pinch salt


1. In a microwave safe bowl, place chocolate and cream. Zap for 1 minute at 50% power. Remove from oven, whisk and then return to oven. Zap for 1 minute more at 50% power. Remove from oven, stir with whisk. Repeat in microwave if necessary, but it should be fine at this point. Add vanilla and pinch of salt. Whisk until smooth and garnish poached pears.





Poached Pear with Chocolate Sauce by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

My daughters decided to help, so the plates took a turn from elegant to eerie. (Reminds me of what would happen would happen if Norman Bates and Vampira had a child who grew up to be a pastry chef.)

Text and images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer, with the exception of the first picture, provided by the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Thanks to the Atlanta Botanical Garden for information on the chocolate exhibit.

Halloween Cakes

Graveyard Cake

Above is from Halloween 2008, a graveyard cake, not quite as fancy as in years past, but homemade, delicious, and lots of fun for the kids to create. The headstones are Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, the ghosts are Peeps and the border is pretzels. No prizes, but still a fun project.

Pound Cake Pumpkins by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Halloween 2007, featuring one cute kid and three big pumpkin cakes. I baked pound cake batter in every Bundt pan in the house and frosted two together to make pumpkins. The leaves are fondant, created by the cute kid. This cake was very heavy, delicious, and won the school's award for creativity!