Halloween Time!

{owl cakes}

We’ve got a week – one week!  Then the little ghosts and witches come a’knockin.  They’re out to steal your Reese’s.  And the princesses and the superheroes and the pumpkins, too.  (Except if you live in a frat house and not a regular house, in which case it’ll be a gaggle of “sexy” cats/nurses/referees… and hamburgers?  I don’t even know anymore.)

 {brown sugar vanilla bean pudding}

I’m a recent convert to Halloween.  When I was younger and had to run around the neighborhood begging for candy (in a Pillsbury Doughboy suit, one year), Halloween felt sort of like a lot of work.  And when I got older and was introduced to the concept of the high school/college “Halloween party,” the holiday turned stressful — I always found the process of coming up with a costume both clever and sufficiently “sexy” to be anxiety-inducing.  Plus at the end of the night I didn’t even get to go home with a pillow case full of Kit-Kats (no innuendo there, just straight up candy bars), so what was even the point of that?

{homemade vanilla marshmallows}

Now that I’m an old lady of 29, I can do whatever the hell I want to do on Halloween.  And what I want to do is hand out candy to cute children in ridiculous costumes.  And eat miniature Twix bars and regular-sized Reese’s.  (I don’t even have to beg for them, it’s fantastic.)

{chocolate peanut butter layer cake}

I also want to celebrate Halloween in my kitchen.  I can’t not decorate stuff with seasonal candy (ahem, brown sugar vanilla bean pudding).  I can’t stop turning cupcakes into owl cakes.

Want to join me?  We’ll turn marshmallows orange and put Reese’s in a layer cake.  We’ll bring out the spider-webby, maple glazed pumpkin bundt!

{pumpkin ginger cake with salted maple glaze}

I mean.  Talk about sexy.

Happy Halloween, everyone!