Sometimes your favorite Halloween party recipe is great but you want to make something a little different. Maybe all you need are a few new, inexpensive kitchen gadgets to inspire you. This is how I discovered my new favorite cupcake recipes using the CuisiPro Cupcake Corer.
When I found the Wilton Halloween Pretzel Mold (which looks like a witch finger), at my local craft store, my eyes almost rolled to the back of my head. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but stay with me because these recipes are so easy, tasty and cute as heck.
Halloween Pretzel Mold Makes Witch Fingers
You can go online and find this little plastic, washable tool or buy it at your local hobby store for only $1.99 like I did. It's fun and easy to use and the choices for colored candy melts (also by Wilton) give you so many choices for coloring your witchy fingers.
Here's how it works:
- Melt the candy colored melts (I bought bags of purple, green and brown chocolate) in a decorating bag or a plastic baggie with the tip cut out for squeezing the chocolate. Squeeze chocolate into the plastic finger forms up to the halfway mark.
- Lay the pretzel rod into the finger form and add more melted chocolate to complete the finger.
- Refrigerate until chocolate is hard and the fingers can be individually wrapped in Pretzel bags or placed standing up in a vase for serving.
Cupcake Corers Make a Perfect Hole for Filling
While wandering the aisles of Williams-Sonoma and drooling over the latest gadgets and baking utensils, wishing my budget allowed for some of the really beautiful pans and baking dishes, I found something I wanted to try out immediately and it was only $5.
This little corer is made of durable polyproplylene (dishwasher safe plastic) that hollows out a perfect center hole in cupcakes, muffins and cakes so you can add whatever filling you like.
All you do is twist the corer into the center of a cupcake. Push the plunger down to remove the core and remove the cake. Save the cake pieces you remove in the freezer for a perfect-sized snack for later.
The first cupcake we tried was chocolate-pumpkin and it was a fine first choice. We baked chocolate cupcakes and then filled the holes and iced the sides with the pumpkin pie mix and put them in the fridge to cool. After a variety of fillings (we tried butter cream frosting, strawberry jam, caramel), we decided to make a cake and fill it with secret fillings of soft Halloween candies that would only be discovered by surprise. Way too much fun!
You can also ice the top of your cupcakes with your favorite flavor of icing and then place the candy finger on top with a little extra red, decorative gel for blood.
So if Halloween rocks your boat, try these little plastic gadgets that make for some really delicious and interesting party foods. Even your little ones will want to help, and with these great little decorating tools, they can!
Vicki F. Chavis - Growing up in Asia, Europe and North America left Vicki with a love of cuisine, history, language, fashion and travel. Today she writes on ...
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