With Sprinkles on Top

It’s November! Yay! I mark November as the beginning of the coziest time of the year. The last two months of the year contain my favorite holidays and more warm ‘n’ fuzzies than I can handle. While I love cinnamon rolls, I do not love how involved they are to make. I always wish there could be an easier way — a faster version. Well here’s the answer: a cinnamon roll bundt cake. And this baby was AMAZING. It was easy to make (mix a bunch of stuff up and pop it in the oven for an hour) and tasted just like a cinnamon roll. . . minus the yeast!

Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake
Recipe source: Bake or Break
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For the cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3-ounce box instant vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon cinnamon

For the filling:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

For the glaze:
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray a 9- or 10-cup Bundt pan with non-stick spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, and pudding mix.
3. Add butter, oil, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream. Mix well. Dough will be thick.
4. In a separate bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Gently fold into the cake batter. Do not mix thoroughly, but leave swirls of cinnamon sugar in the batter.
5. Transfer half of the cake batter to prepared pan.
6. To make the filling: Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Sprinkle over the batter in the pan. Scoop remaining cake batter over the filling and smooth the top.
7. Bake cake 45-50 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Then, flip the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.
8. To make the glaze: Mix confectioners’ sugar, 3 tablespoons of cream, and vanilla until smooth. Add more cream as needed to make glaze pourable. Drizzle glaze over cake.

Here’s a collection of nearly all of the fall/Halloween recipes on my blog. Have a wonderful holiday :)

1. Pumpkin Cupcakes
2. Pumpkin Raisin Bread
3. Mummy Cupcakes
4. Halloween Brownies
5. Hoot Owl Cupcakes
6. Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies
7. Trick-or-Treat Rice Krispie Treats
8. Ghost Cake
9. Spider Cupcakes
10. Pumpkin Cupcakes II
11. Frankenstein Cupcakes
12. Candy Corn Cupcakes
13. Sparkling Candy Corn Cookies
14. Chocolate & Vanilla Halloween Cupcakes
15. Pumpkin Spiderweb Cookies
16. Halloween Puppy Chow
17. Candy Corn Surprise Cupcakes
18. Pumpkin M&M Cookies
19. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
20. Pumpkin Pi Cookies
21. Caramel Apple Cupcakes
22. Candy Corn Cupcakes
23. Skeleton Cookies
24. Frankencake
25. Day of the Dead Cookies
26. Ghost Cookies
27. Monster Cupcakes
28. Candy Corn Mummy Cookies

Here’s the counterpart to yesterday’s post! I love skeletons. I’ve always been fascinated by them – I think they are eerie and beautiful. These cookies are obviously a cartoon-ish version of a skeleton – and they weren’t that difficult to do. [And this is saying a lot coming form a girl that is not what you’d call fabulous in her piping skills!]

Skeleton Cookies
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For the cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with a skeleton cookie cutter (a gingerbread man cookie cutter will also do the trick!). Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Note: Feel free to use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I chose this one because it’s my favorite.

For the decorating:
You’ll need water, meringue powder, powdered sugar, and AmeriColor’s Super Black coloring. As well as a small round pastry tip and a plastic bottle for flooding. I outlined each skeleton with black icing. Once the outlines were set, I flooded each with black icing. Once the cookies had dried completely, I piped the “bones” onto each cookie. I don’t know how to go into detail on that — you’ll just have to follow along from what you can see on the photo. All it involves are simple lines and shapes. I placed candy eyes on each as well. If you don’t have candy eyes, you can just pipe black icing onto the cookies for eyes.

As always, I refer you to Annie’s post about decorating with royal icing. She’s got it down to a science and there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel here!

BOO! Ghosts, of the Casper-the-friendly-ghost variety, are so cute and cuddly. These cookies involve royal icing, but were easier than usual because only one color of royal icing was needed! Saves a lot of time and energy only having to worry about making white icing. Anyway – here’s the scoop on how these were made.

Ghost Cookies
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For the cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with a ghost cookie cutter. Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Note: Feel free to use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I chose this one because it’s my favorite.

For the decorating:
You’ll need water, meringue powder, and powdered sugar. As well as a small round pastry tip and a plastic bottle for flooding. I outlined each cookie with white icing. Once the outline set up, I flooded the cookies with white icing. Place two candy eyes on top of each ghost and that’s it!

As always, I refer you to Annie’s post about decorating with royal icing. She’s got it down to a science and there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel here!

I’ve been blogging for a long time and it’s easy to run out of ideas for the holidays. There are only so many variations of a candy corn cupcake or a spooky spider cookie, ya know? I thought I’d combine a few things for these cookies — making candy corn mummies!

Candy Corn Mummy Cookies
Recipe source: The Partiologist
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For the sugar cookies:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with candy corn-shaped cookie cutter. Bake at 350F until golden, about 8-10 minutes.

Note: You can use any sugar cookie recipe you’d like. I used this because it’s my favorite. But use whatever you prefer. The recipe above will make quite a few cookies — at least 3 dozen.

For the icing:
1 stick salted butter – room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter – room temperature
1 cup shortening
1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioner’s sugar
4-6 tablespoons very cold milk
Orange and yellow food coloring

1. Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer.
2. Add the clear vanilla extract and combine well.
3. Begin adding in the sugar and mixing thoroughly after each addition.
4. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, begin adding the very cold milk… one tablespoon at a time, combining very well after each addition (mixer on medium-high to high speed) until you reach the desired consistency.
5. Divide into three bowls. Keep one bowl white, dye the other two orange and yellow.
— Recipe from therepressedpastrychef.blogspot.com

Assembly:
Using a flat piping tip (Wilton #47 works well), pipe yellow, orange, and white icing onto the cookies in mummy-like fashion. No need to be perfect with this — because every mummy looks a little messy, right?! Place two candy eyes onto each cookie. If you don’t have candy eyes, you can pipe eyes with icing (provided you have some black food coloring).