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| Sweets To Die For! |
| These are good vittles!! |
| Welcome to the pages of Sweets to Die For! |
| Pus Pockets Spider Web Pumpkin Cheesecake Pumpkin Bread Banana Bread Halloween Truffles Witches Fingers |
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| Pus Pockets |
| Mini Eclairs |
| Pastry: 1 cup of water 1 stick of butter 1 cup of sifted all purpose flour 4 eggs Filling: 3cups of milk 3/4 cup of sugar 1/2 teaspoon of salt 6 tablespoons of all purpose flour 3 eggs 2 teaspoons of vanilla Icing: 2 (1 oz.) squares of chocolate 2 cups of sugar 1 cup of whipping cream preheat oven to 400 degrees |
| Heat water and butter to boiling point. Add flour and stir constantly until mixture is smooth and forms a ball when tested in cold water. Remove from heat and let cool. Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time. Drop dough from teaspoon to form small eclairs onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for approx. 30 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside to cool. Prepare filling by combing milk, sugar, salt and flour, cook slowly until it thickens. Add 3 beaten eggs and continue to cook until mixture is even thicker. Remove from heat, cool and add vanilla. With a serrated knife, slice pastry ouffs lenghtwise, but not all the way throygh. Pipe custard mixture into the center. Melt chocolate for icing, add sugar and cream. Cook over medium heat until soft ball stage. Let cool and beat till smooth. Ice tops of the eclairs. |
| Spider Web Pumpkin Cheesecake |
| 1 1/2 cup of graham crackers 2 tablespoons of melted butter 3/4 cup of sugar 3 pacs (8 oz.ea.) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened 1 can (15 oz. ) pumpkin 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice 3 eggs 1 cup of sour cream 1 square of Baker's Semi Sweet Chocolate 1 teaspoon of butter |
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| Preheat the oven to 350 degrees for a dark pan, 325 degrees for a silver pan. |
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| Mix graham cracker crumbs with 2 tablespoons of butter and mix thouroughly with a spoon until all the crumbs are moist. Bake 10 minutes. Set aside. Beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl with and lecetric mixwe on medium speed until well bleded. Add pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice; mix well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition until well blended. Pour over the crust. Bake 50- 55 minutes until center is almost set: cool slightly. Run the knife or metal spatula around the rim of the pan to loosen the cake....be gentle so it does not cause the cake to tear. I would like to mention here that at this point I put my cheesecake in the frig and leave it overnight and put the top on in the morning. Carefully spread sour cream over top of cheesecake. A note here: Leave your sour cream out at room temperature for awhile so its not cold. Otherwise when you pour the chocolate on top to make the rings, the chocolate solidifies right away because the sour cream is cold. Work quickly in making your web design. Run the knife or metal spatula around the rim of the pan to lossen the cake again. Place chocolate and 1 teaspoon of butter in a small microwaveable bowl. Microwave on medium for 30 seconds, stir until chocolate is melted. Drizzle chocolate over cheesecake in spiral patterns. Starting at the center of the cheesecake, pull a toothpick through lines from the center of cheesecake to the outside edge of cheesecake to resemble a spiders web. My Diner Secret: When cutting your cheesecake, run a large knife under very hot water, this will alleviate tearing when it goes thru your cake. After each slice wipe and excess cheesecake off your knife with a paper towel and run blade under hot water agin. This will give you picture perfect slices! |
| Pumpkin Bread |
| Cream Together: 1 1/2 cups of sugar 2 eggs Add: 1/2 cup of oil 1 cup of pumpkin 2 cups of flour 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp. allspice 3/4 tsp. baking powder 3/4 tsp. baking soda 1/3 cup of water Grease & flour a loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 - 45 minutes |
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| Blood Balls |
| Hubby's Recipe: a cold cherry dessert |
| Blood Balls are so very good!! Take it from me....I serve them at all my parties!! |
| 3/4 cup of sugar 2 packages of dream whip 1 cup of cold milk 1 1/4 stick of butter 2 cnas of cherry pie filling 1 8oz. package of cream cheese 2 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs |
| Melt butter and mix with graham cracker crumbs, cover bottom of regular casserole dish with 1/2 of this mixture. Whip together dry dream whip and milk, when whipped add sugar and cream cheese. Mix well. Pour 1/2 of mixture over crumbs, then spoon cherry filling over cream, top the cherries with remaining 1/2 of whipped cream mixture. Sprinkle remaining half of crumbs over pie filling. |
| Green Guts w/ Worms |
| Witches Fingers |
| 1 cup of butter, softened 1 cup of icing sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon of almond extract 1 teaspoon of vanilla 2 2/3 cups of flour 1 teaspoon of baking powder 1 teaspoon of salt 3/4 cup almonds, whole blanched 1 tube of red decorator gel |
| In a bowl beat together sugar, egg, butter, almond extract and vanilla. Beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Working with one quarter of the dough and keeping remainder refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoonfuls of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press almond firmly into one end for nail. Squeeze the center to create a knuckle shape. (you puff it out rather than squeeze it) Using a paring knife, make slashes in several place to form the knuckle. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet; bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until pale gold. Let cool 3 minutes. Lift up almond, squeeze red decorator gel into nail bed and press almond back in place so gel oozes out from underneath it. You can make slashes in the finger and fill with blood. Remove from baking sheets and let cool on racks. Repeat with remaing dough. |
| Delicious Pistachio Instant Pudding filled with Gummy Worms |
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| These are such fun for a party as you can do so much with them. Companies are charging and arm and a leg for this set-up and caterers are coming up with very creative things to dip! It gives you the opportunity to be very free in how you design your trays. Its seems anything goes these days with the items you can offer. Trays can be made up very elaborately using fruits that are just cut with bite size pieces but displayed in carved larger pieces of fruit. You can use a watermelon & stick skewers in it that already have different fruits assembled on them But be sure to fit this into your budget, sometimes at this time of year fruits can be costly. You also have to treat your fruit if it will be sitting on the buffet line so it does not turn brown. Something else to offer with fruits would be trays of assorted cookies, small bite size pieces of cheesecake ( similiar to the new "Cheesecake on a Stick"), any flavor cake, and all kinds of candies, pretzels and marshmellows. You can build a beautiful table with trays of all these items that would be very impressive to your guests. I used the cake below & the pecan cake went exceptionally well with white chocolate. I did not have time to frost that cake so I just stuck in the sticks & flags & called it good to go! Also be aware that candy melts & regular chocolate might not flow thru your fountain to well. Chocolate is very thick & I see now they are coming out with chocolate just for these machines. No matter how you set this up on your table it makes for a great presentation & your guests will love it! |
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| Fountain of Deadly Elixer |
| Haunted Castle Cake |
| This Haunted Castle Cake was made in the Nordic Castle Cake Mold. I mixed up 2 boxes of butter pecan cake mix and filled the mold a little over 3/4's full. Baked at 350 degrees for 1 hour, checked the cake and baked another 20 miuntes. Make sure you put this on a rack in the middle of the oven because mine rose pretty high. Release from mold after 10 minutes. I also sprayed the inside of the mold with Pam and then floured. After adding the batter I used a spoon and brushed batter up against the sides of the cake mold to help the batter crawl up the sides so I would get all the stairs and such. No frosting here we just planned on cutting pieces and dipping the chunks in the chocolate fountain. |
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| Sweets To Die For |
| Note: I'll get another photo in here as soon as I bake another Pumpkin Cheesecake. The web on top did not come out right in this photo, the sour cream came right out of the frig and I immediately poured the warmed chocolate on top of it. Hitting that cold sour cream the chocolate solidified right away. So when you make this make sure your sour cream has sat out a while & is at room temperature. |
| A coffin for each of the Collins Family members & Father's Dentures! |
| Banana Bread |
| 3 bananas mashed set aside Mix with: 1 tsp. baking soda 3 T. warm water Cream: 1 stick of butter 1 cup of sugar Add: bananas 1/2 tsp. salt 2 unbeaten eggs 1 tsp. vanilla Grease & flour a loaf pan. Pour batter into pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until done. |
| Tips |
| I knew a pastry chef once that worked for a big hotel. He told me the key to great tasting quick breads was to bake them, let them cool & freeze them. He said something happens in the frozen state to make your bread have a better texture & flavor. |
| Make several varieties of breads ahead of time, freeze them & take out the morning of your party & let them defrost either in the frig or at room temperature. Then slice them thinly & arrange on a tray w/ a dollie. Serve with honey butter & flavored spreadable cream cheeses. People love these! |
| When baking things of this nature, if you like a more pronounced flavor try adding more on the spices. You can also use banana extract but be careful cause a little goes a long ways. |
| Blood Balls Assorted Halloween Candies Green Guts The Haunted Castle Cake Fountain of Deadly Elixer |
| Assorted Halloween Candies |
| With us being professional chocolatiers, when people come to our place for a party they always expect to be able to enjoy our delicious candies. So we make a pretty good sized tray of things surrounded by novelty pieces for whatever holiday it might be. We purchase molds in pretty large quatities but for the homemaker that is looking to make just a few items I suggest a visit to your local cake & candy shop, or Michaels or the best selection is on Ebay. Just a warning tho, be careful ordering molds to close to the holiday because the companies on Ebay will take your money even if they are out of the mold & it is on back order & you will get it at a later date>>>>always seems to come after the holiday is over. This has happened a couple of times to me when I needed a mold quickly for a special order. What I do is I send a message to the seller to make sure they have that mold in stock & can ship it right away. Best suggestion is...if you are planning on a candy tray or to use a novelty piece for a favor...... order your molds ahead of time. Also, when I order molds professionally I order 100's at a time so a thing to keep in mind is...if you are planning on making a lot of the piece on the mold I suggest getting 4-5 molds so when your chocolate is warm you can make a few of them at a time. Otherwise with one mold you'll be having problems w/ your chocolate getting hard between drying times of the mold being in the frig.. |
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| Here we have caramels, caramel nougats & dark chocolate caramels. |
| Here is our Pink Rat Lolly |
| Peanut Butter Bon Bons w/ Orange Novelty Piece |
| Always have plenty these on hand........these are turtles |
| Our ex-large Pumpkin Lolly |
| Everybody alway loves Pretzel Rods dipped in Chocolate |