Cooking With WCCO: 3 Spooky Halloween Desserts
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Halloween is all about family time: carving pumpkins together, decorating the front porch, and picking out a great costume. Chef Ashley Mendel from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school says it's also a great time for cooking together. She shared three easy recipes for Halloween treats in this week's Cooking with WCCO from the Cambria Studio Kitchen in Minneapolis.
Spooky Monster Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- Buttercream icing
- White fondant
- Cooked cupcakes, your choice of batter
- Colored icing
- Decorator tips
- Disposable frosting bags
Method of Preparation:
- Bake any type of cupcake batter and let cupcakes cool.
- Frost the cupcakes using the icing color of your desired monster!
- Tint fondant with your choice of color to contrast cupcake and roll into 1/16-inch thick strip. Use to make horns, ears, teeth and anything spooky!
- Let fondant sit out for 48 hours for to ensure it keeps its shape.
- Make eyes with buttercream frosting, tinting black to create the center.
- Serve and enjoy this Halloween!
Ghost Meringues
Ingredients:
- 5 egg whites
- 1 tsp. Cream of Tartar
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
- Decorative icing gel, black
- Disposable frosting bags
- Large round decorator tip
Method of Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 220⁰F.
- Using an electric mixer, whip egg whites for a few minutes on high speed until bubbles appear.
- Gradually add sugar to mixer.
- Add Cream of Tartar.
- Continue to whip the mixture until stiff peaks form.
- Prepare baking sheet with a layer of cooking spray.
- Place meringue mixture into a frosting bag.
- Using frosting bag and icing tip, continually press the meringue mixture directly down onto the sheet tray. Press down and lift up to create layered stacks for each ghost.
- Bake meringues for about 45 minutes or until they look slightly toasted.
- Add eyes and mouths to your ghost with black icing gel! Boo!
Pumpkin-Frosted Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- ½ tsp. almond extract
- 2 tbsp. milk
- 3 cups flour
- 1½ tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
Buttercream frosting
Ingredients:
- ⅔ cup butter, softened
- 3 ¼ cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp. heavy whipping cream
- Food coloring as desired
Method of Preparation (Cookies):
- In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.
- Add egg, vanilla extract and almond extract and mix well.
- Add milk and mix again.
- Stir in flour, baking powder and salt.
- Chill dough for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350⁰F.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a patty about ¼-inch thick.
- Cut your cookies with a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter and place on baking sheet.
- Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, or to desired level of chewiness.
- Let cool, frost and enjoy!
Method of Preparation (Buttercream Frosting):
- Cream butter in a large mixing bowl.
- Add powdered sugar, vanilla and heavy whipping cream and beat until smooth and creamy. Add more powdered sugar and/or heavy whipping cream as needed to achieve desired consistency.
- Split buttercream into 3 bowls.
- Tint one orange, one green and one brown.
- Place frosting into piping bags and decorate away!
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