Eye-Popping Cupcakes

We've already carved pumpkins, picked out our costumes, and set up our outdoor decorations.  But, the Halloween season isn't complete until you bake something disgusting.  Enter the Eye-Popping halloween cupcakes.

 Like so many things in life, baking disgusting cupcakes are fun for kids (who don't really have to do any of the work), but a hassle for parents.  Regardless, this is a tasty treat that your kids are going to either enjoy or turn their nose up at.  Let's do this.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs                           1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp almond extract               1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pink paste food coloring         1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder            1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt                              1/4 cup finely ground almonds
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar       3/4 cup butter




The cupcakes are the easy part and pretty much the only part where your children (depending on their age) can actually help you.

1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Line a muffin pan (twelve-hole) with cupcake liners.  Mix the eggs, vanilla and almond extracts, and only 3 tablespoons worth of the 1/2 cup of sour cream.  If your daughter is sitting at the kitchen peninsula yelling "I do it", now would be a good time to let her help.  Let your kids pour ingredients into the mixing bowls; it's all my 3-year old will be able to do anyway.   If you have pink food coloring, add a small amount.  I just used one drop of red food coloring and it turned out alright.  You just want to get a nice fleshy color.

2.  Mix the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt into a separate bowl.  Add the almonds and sugar.  Finally, mix in the rest of the sour cream using an electric mixer.  Gradually beat in the egg mixture until combined.  Fill your cupcake liners and bake for ten minutes, turn the pan, and bake for ten more.

3.  Once the cupcakes are cool, press an "Eye Socket" shape into the tops.

Now school begins.

First off, let me say that before this little Halloween craft began, I had no idea what fondant was.  Now I know it's delicious.

Here's what you need to decorate your Halloween cupcakes.

cornstarch
approximately 1 1/2 lbs. of  plain white fondant
3 oz. clear piping gel
red edible marker pen
paste food coloring (brown, black, sky blue)
vegetable shortening

1.  Spread out some cornstarch on your work surface and roll out the fondant to about 1/8 of an inch in thickness.  You want to cut out circles to cover the cupcakes.  I used a glass from the cupboard.  They were a little bigger than necessary, but as mentioned before, fondant is delicious so more is better.  Once they're cut out, place them on your cupcakes.

2.  Eyes:  To make the eyes, pull off an eye-ball chunk size of fondant and roll it around into a ball.  Squeeze one end of it out into a "stem".  Make 12 of 'em.

 They'll look less erotic later. I promise.

3.  Eyebrows:  Make some eyebrows by rolling fondant into little sausage shapes.  First, you'll need to dye your fondant brown.  You only need a small amount of the paste food coloring to do this.  Work the brown paste through the fondant until it's a nice brown.  When it gets sticky, use some vegetable shortening.  Roll your brown fondant into a sausage shape.  Flatten out one end of it and curve the other end around like an eyebrow.  Use a knife to cut "hair" into the eyebrow.  This is the one part of the project that I feel turned out like crap.

LITERALLY! They turned out like little pieces of crap.

4.  Irises:  Take a small amount of fondant and one or two drops of sky blue paste coloring and work it together.  Roll out the blue fondant and punch out 12 tiny circles for the irises.  If you have a small piping tip, great, if not, you'll have to improvise.  I used the end of our pumpkin carving tools to cut them out.  Dip the end of your finger into water and attach the irises to the eyeballs.

It carves, it cuts holes, it makes Julienne fries.

5. Pupils:  You need a very small amount of fondant for the pupils.  Use your black paste coloring (a miniscule amount) to turn the fondant black.  Pinch of a tiny piece and rub it into a ball between your fingers.  Attach to the iris using a small amount of water.  Once the eyes are complete, use an edible marker (red) to draw arteries on the eyeballs.

6.  Bloody Goo:  I imagine that if an eye came out of its socket, there would be a considerable amount of bloody goo.  So let's make some.  Dish out your piping gel and turn it blood red with some food coloring.  Remember those holes you pushed into the tops of the cupcakes?  Pour some of your blood into those sink holes.  Sink the stem of your eyes into the hole and attach it with water.  Place your
eyebrows above the eye socket.

Enjoy grossing people out with your Halloween Cupcakes.  If the eyes don't freak them out, the
cat poop eyebrows will.  For more disgusting treats, check out Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen.

Bat Bracelets

Last night we had some free time in between dinner and Thursday Night Football so I thought we'd have a little Halloween fun.  We've already done the pumpkin carving thing, which, even though the pumpkins turned out alright, was nowhere near fun.  So we decided to try something new...Hand Crafted Bat Bracelets.

Here's what you'll need:

Black Construction Paper
Scissors
Rubber Band/Hair Tie
Pen/Pencil
Glitter/Decorations (I wish we had Googly Eyes)
Stapler
Glue/Glue Stick
2-3 Beers (Seasonal)



The first thing you'll want to do is cut out a bat template.  You can use the pattern below or create your own.

You may have to adjust the size before printing.

Before printing your image, you may want to reverse the black/white colors so you don't waste a lot of ink.  It will also make tracing your template easier when you lay it over black construction paper.  Once you've printed out your template, cut it out.

Lay your template over the black construction paper and trace three bats.

I recommend tracing the first bat and then waiting for someone to offer help.  When they do, tell them you need help tracing the template.  Now let yourself enjoy a seasonal brew.

Sam Adams Octoberfest is a nice choice. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking one right now. I don't care if it's two in the afternoon.

If they catch on that you're not doing any of the work, now would be a great time to sucker one of your kids into doing it.

She's almost done, better chug that beer.

With all of your bats traced, it's time to cut them out.  If you're not done with that beer, let the kids cut.  If you are done, grab another one and let the kids cut.

You need three bats to make one bracelet.  Once they're cut out it's time to decorate.  We had glitter and pom-poms at our disposal.  Sadly, all of our googly eyes were used in a previous Paper Bag Puppet fiasco, so we had to do without.  Our daughter is all about glitter, so all she wanted to do was lay down some glue and pour an entire bottle of glitter on each bat.

Lay a nice glue foundation....

...then empty the entire contents of your glitter tube.  Once you have depleted your glitter resources, set those bats out to dry.  When they're dry stack all three of them and staple them together.

After the first staple is in you're ready to make the bracelet.  You can use a rubberband, but I recommend a hair tie instead.  It won't break like a rubber band will and it's easier on the skin.

Spread out the bat wings and you're ready for some trick or treating.

Be sure to have your kids clean that mess up while you enjoy another drink.

Elmo Toy

A first child's second birthday is more planned out than a second child's first birthday.  The third child is lucky to get a cake at all.  Our son's second birthday was the last time we did a huge production.  The next year began the era of shared birthday's and ended the reign of themed decorations and streamers.

Anytime that you throw a Themed Birthday Party you can guarantee that most of the presents your child receives will be theme-related.  See all those Elmo dolls above?  Little man hasn't even opened any presents yet and already I see four future yard sale items.  Many of the presents he opened that day have been broken or "lost".  But, there is one that the kids still enjoy playing with.

I'd like to think Elmo dies a slow, painful death by freezing.

This little tin has three different sections that you can turn to customize your Elmo.  We've had this toy four years...and we just discovered that it opens.   Actually, the baby discovered it opens.  As she was playing with it on the floor yesterday, I noticed her trying to rip off the lid.  I, being in superior intelligence to the baby, told her the lid doesn't come off.  Then I saw it give a little.  But what could be inside?

Could it be money? Please tell me it's money! Grandparents love hiding money in toys

Sadly, it wasn't money.  But, it was something almost as satisfying.

COOKIES!!!

Yes, delicious, four-year old, aged cookies.  Now, most parents would probably throw those cookies away.  But the Parenting Dad, knows the importance of cookies.  I don't like waiting around for cookies and these cookies have been waiting around on me for a good four years.  I owe it to them, to eat them.

Out of curiosity, I thought it'd be interesting to see what the expiration date was on this newly discovered tasty treat.

March 1st of 2009 you say?  We'll see about that.  My wife and I often disagree on the dates printed on groceries.  She tends to throw milk away 2-3 days before the USE BY date.  Personally, I treat milk the same way I treat underwear found on the floor.  If it smells okay, it's probably good for a few more days.

Besides, those dates are just the suggested use by dates.  Often, these dates are set up using government regulations.  The government suggests all kinds of things I don't agree with.  Things like, you can't drive a car if your BAC is .08, or the two-party system.  So did I eat it?

Of course I did; they're cookies.  Did they taste horrible?

Of course they did.  Read the label.

How could you endorse such a product Cookie Monster?

Today's parenting advice...avoid any foods with the word 'organic' on the packaging.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I see an artist that paints like he's three!

Why is Eric Carle famous?  His illustrations are absolutely horrific.  Just take a second and look at the Picasso-esque bear above and know that comparing Carle's work to Picasso is not a compliment.  Everything after Pablo's "Rose Period" looked worse than any bear, firefly, or hungry caterpillar that Carle ever brought into existence.

The only thing worse than having to look at the poor punishment that Carle inflicted upon the paper found in his books is having to read the mind-numbing words of his partner Bill Martin Jr.   In Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, Martin uses a combination of 36 different words.  Ten of these words are repeated ten times using the same formula:

(Insert Animal Here), (Repeat previous animal's name here)
What do you hear?
I hear a (Insert the name of whatever poorly drawn animal is on the next page)
(Making a noise) in my ear.

I will give Carle credit for being a better author than he is an artist.  We also have a copy of Little Cloud that my daughter loves to read.   Fortunately, it is nowhere near as formulaic as Martin's work, but, it loses Daddy points for not rhyming.  If only he would have subcontracted the illustrations.



Little Cloud may actually be a work of genius.  His pictures accurately portray the amount of imagination you need to use to turn white blobs into meaningful shapes.

Eric Carle has illustrated over 70 books and sold more than 103 million copies worldwide.   This fact confirms my theory that you can label something art and somebody, somewhere will be willing to buy it.  Thankfully, our books came from yardsales.

If you like crappy art and horrible stories, you'll love these books:
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; 25th Anniversary Edition
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? My First Reader
The Greedy Python
The Grouchy Ladybug

Microwave Cookies

I love cookies, but I hate making them.   I'm a busy guy.   I don't have 30 minutes to waste on pre-heating an oven and then baking cookies.  I want chocolate now.  What's a guy to do?  Microwave them Cookies

.

In as little as 3.5 minutes you can be throwing back mouthfuls of chocolatey-goodness and sucking down some skim milk.  Here's how:

1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 c. dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. Bisquick
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Stir the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together.  Mix in the Bisquick.  Drop the chocolate in and you're ready to go.  Place some cookie shaped balls of dough on your plate.  Microwave it for 3.5 minutes at medium power.  Done!

That's 26.5 minutes of free-time you've gained over the traditional baking-your-cookies-in-the-oven method.  Spend it wisely.  I took a nap and then wrote this.

But do they taste awful? Yes...Awful delicious!

FUndraising

The only thing I hate more than buying something I don't need is selling stuff nobody wants.  Fundraising.

Let's talk Boy Scouts.   We recently signed our son up for the scout program, partly to get him away from the t.v., but mainly to get him some exposure to social interaction; he's a loner.   So far it's been an "okay" activity.  He argues about going, but once we get there, he usually enjoys himself.  Then, last week, they dropped the popcorn bomb on us.

Now, I like popcorn.  The more butter...the more better.  But what makes an 11 oz. bag worth ten dollars?  Honestly, you're basically eating air.  Delicious, butter-soaked air, but air nonetheless.   They try to make it fun for the kids and give out prizes based on how much crap they sell.  The first level prize is a little wristband and headlamp, so your child can dress up like a coal miner that enjoys biking.

$1.59 on Amazon

1 penny on Amazon

Question...How much popcorn do you think one would have to sell for such a reward?  Answer...$250.  Yes, that's two hundred and fifty dollars worth of caramelized and/or buttery air for a one cent bracelet and a two dollar flashlight.  No matter how hard organizations try to put the "fun" into fundraising, they only end up putting the "F-U" in fun.

If you want to raise funds for your scouts, raise the cost to join.  You shouldn't be hitting up other people to fund your child's activities.  If you'd like to fund my child's activities, please click here.

WARNING!!! Rewards may not be as cool as advertised.

What really annoys me is having to sell stuff for school.  This includes a wide range of things from magazines, to pizzas, candles, and just about any other product found in "Start Your Own Home Business" books.

It's like a frozen pizza, but more expensive.

I understand that schools are short on money.  I live in Illinois, which I believe is second only to California in the race for the most broke state.  We're coming for you Cali!  But I don't think my kids should have to peddle pepperoni or move magazines to make up for the government's lack of budgeting and surplus of spending.  Although, with America falling behind in education, perhaps the schools are just preparing them for future work.

I have multiple problems with school fundraising.  Between an hour bus ride home and two hours of homework, when exactly are they supposed to be selling this stuff?  Here's another thing:  Who are they supposed to sell it to?  Every kid in town is pushing the same product.  It's called over-saturation and it kills profits.  Some people like to argue in favor of fundraising as if it will avoid a tax increase.  Don't try to tell me that if my kid doesn't sell enough pizzas then taxes will be raised.  Taxes, like so many pizza doughs, are self-rising.  They will be raised regardless of how many "Gourmet" pizzas we sell.

When it comes to raising funds, whether it be the boy scouts popcorn or the school's pizza, I do make sure that these papers are taken to the streets.....

....in a large garbage truck.

Disclaimer:  If any girl scouts are reading this, please disregard.  Those coconut cookies are the shit.  Keep 'em coming.