Spider Pinata DIY at Oh Happy Day. That is one meaty looking spider.

Easy Last-Minute Costume Ideas For Adults | Celebrations with Design Mom. This video has a few simple ideas that are low-commitment but still fun.

Pumpktris, A Playable LED Lit Game of Tetris Inside of a Pumpkin, at Laughing Squid.

Secret Horror – The Morning News. Six horror movies you might not know about but are worth watching.

skulls at Design Crush. A post by yours truly.

Remember last year when I made a 3D Gingerbread Christmas Tree out of interlocking cookies so that the tree stands on it’s own? I had so much fun making it that I decided to do something for Halloween too. This time I made a tree from four pieces so that the eight branches resemble spider legs. Perched in a dish of candy it looks rather creepy.

To make this I used one batch of Gingerbread House dough from Simply Recipes that was divided into four equal pieces before chilling it. I roll it to 1/4-inch thickness and bake it until the edges are browning so that it’s as dry and strong as possible. Directions and templates are all below.

I think I have some changes to make but in the mean time I feel like I’ve figured out how to roll out gingerbread dough with as little swearing as possible. As much as I love making gingerbread for construction purposes I really dislike rolling it out. Here is my set up:

The Roll-Pat is an investment but it gives me a smooth surface to use. It grips the tabletop and keeps parchment paper from slipping. A nice, heavy and super wide rolling pin with handles also makes a huge difference, before this I only had a cylinder rolling pin but this one with handles makes the job a lot easier. I have a 15″ rolling pin and it is large enough for everything I’ve used it for so far. I have both silicone and rubber rolling pin rings (one set has 1/2 inch and the other has 5/8ths inch heights). I cannot fit the thicker rubber rings around my larger rolling pin so I switch to my narrower rolling pin if I need to use them.

I let the dough come to room temperature and before I put it down to roll it out I squish flat to about twice the thickness I ultimately want. I like to roll dough between two layers of parchment paper, my house is small and flour gets everywhere so I avoid using it when I can.

Roll between two layers of parchment, and make sure it’s big enough to cut out your shape. I roll out all four pieces of dough first and leave each sandwiched in parchment until I’m ready to cut out my shapes.

I peel off the top layer of parchment and cut away any excess parchment so that it will ultimately fit onto a cookie sheet.

I sprinkle a little flour on top so that my paper template won’t stick.

Keep a pastry brush nearby to brush away excess flour when you’re done, try not to get it all over your floor the way I always manage to do.

To cut around the template I have found that a thin, blunt metal pattern tracing wheel does the job really well, think of it like a miniature pizza cutter. It makes a straighter cut and clears more height than a similar fondant cutter.

To cut tidy details into the corners I use this thin metal sewing ruler. You can also use a flat head screwdriver or a blunt knife, be very careful to not cut into the surface of your rollpat.

After you’re done cutting out your shape remove the excess dough from around it, this will keep the shape from warping or stretching. Then slide that parchment right onto your cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheet in the freezer for about ten minutes before baking.

Here are all four baked shapes, and below I’m showing how they fit together.

Here are four images you can use if you’d like to make your own, each should print out at about the size of a sheet of paper:

I think I have more gingerbread experimentation to come. Happy Halloween!

Mighty Thirst, Halloween: Killer Bloody Mary | Mighty Girl. Adore the garnish.

10 Caramel Apples You Should Consider Making | Hitting Refresh with Laura Mayes.

Bake It in a Cake • Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.

A Salem-Lover’s Tourism Guide | The Hairpin.

These Trick-or-Treat cookies have a surprise inside. Each cookie either holds a treat, like mini chocolate candies, or a trick, here they are small sugar ants. Which will you get? You’ll have to break one open to find out.

How to make Trick-or-Treat cookies:

Make one or more batches of cut out cookie dough (recipe below, or use your favorite) and after chilling it take it out of the fridge to warm up so it can be rolled out. Preheat your oven to 350 and clear a shelf in your fridge or a spot in your freezer large enough to hold a cookie sheet.

Roll out one half of your dough between two sheets of parchment paper to a 1/4th inch thickness. Remove the top layer of parchment and cut out your cookies, dipping the cutter in flour to keep it from sticking. We’ll be baking the cookies on this same parchment so space them about an inch apart.

Right now you are cutting two parts of each cookies (the top and the bottom) so if you have an asymmetrical cutter be sure to flip it over and cut half of them mirror image, as shown above.

Trim the parchment away from the dough so that it’s small enough to sit on your cookie sheet and slide the parchment onto the cookie sheet. Put this in the fridge or freezer to firm up so you can pull away the excess dough.

Later we’ll baking the cookies right on this sheet so trimming the parchment means they’ll bake flat. I keep the cookies on this same parchment throughout so they don’t have a chance to lose their shape.

Once the dough has firmed up pull away the excess from around the cut out shapes. You can save the scraps for more cookies later.

Before baking chill the cookies and the cookie sheet again for about 10 minutes before putting them in the oven. (You can roll out your second layer while you’re waiting, instructions are just under the next photo.)

Bake for about 10 minutes, checking and rotating the cookie sheet half way through. After that check often and remove once the edges of the cookies are just starting to look brown and the tops look set.

Slide the parchment onto a cooling rack and let them sit for a few minutes until the cookies are cool and strong enough to slide them off the parchment and right onto the cookie rack.

Roll your second half of the dough to 1/2″ or 3/8″ thick. You’ll be cutting the middles for you cookies so only cut half as many this time, so if you cut six earlier, you only need three now. (No need to make mirror image cut outs this time.) Use smaller cutters to create a hole in the center of each shape.

Trim the parchment, slide onto a cookie sheet and chill the dough as you did for the first round. When it’s firm remove the excess dough from the outside as well as the inside of your shapes.

Again, chill these very well on the cookie sheet before baking them. Check and rotate after five minutes and keep an eye on them after that. Remove when the bottom edges begin to brown and cool carefully, as you did for the first set.

While your cookie pieces are cooling mix up some glue from one cup of powdered sugar and four tablespoons of milk (as per the recipe below). Put this into a sandwich sized zip bag and clip a teeny tiny corner off.

Lay your cookies out so the bottom piece has the flattest side up, the middle and tops will have the flattest side down. When constructed the top and the bottom of your cookies will show the pretty side that was up while they were baking and they’ll look nice and tidy. If you have asymmetrical cookies here be sure all the bits will match when they are sandwiched.

Glue the middle part of your cookie to the bottom.

Fill the cookies with your trick or your treat. Be random, no cheating! Don’t overfill them and check to make sure the top of your cookie will fit on with no trouble. It’s much easier to do this not before more sugar glue is introduced.

I made four different shapes: pumpkins, ghosts, tombstones and coffins (my favorite).

A detail shot to show the middle layer of cookie is a bit thicker than the top and bottom layers.

Glue the top on, decorate if you’d like, and you’re done! Now, serve these and see how much fun people have breaking them open.

Notes:

Important: Make sure anything you might put inside these cookies is edible, you don’t want somebody accidentally swallowing something like a plastic spider (which I really, really wanted to hide inside these).

These cookies were inspired by the Pinata Cookies made over at She Knows, which are genius. Since I didn’t need mine to be striped I used a cut out sugar cookie recipe instead and created a thicker middle layer. I did try to cut the cookies out when the dough comes out of the oven and is still warm, the technique that is in the She Knows recipe, but found it created an edge that was too crumbly.

I used a set of seven Halloween cookie cutters made by Wilton for the cookies you see here. I cannot seem to find the same set online, it came packaged in a coffin shaped box and it’s probably already 50% off at Joann. The middles of my cookies were cut out using my Ateco 12-piece round cutters, which I love and find myself using often.

I find rolling dough to be tedious so I invested in a Roll-Pat (that page shows it as Roul-Pat but mine says Roll-Pat on it). It’s similar to a Silpat but oversized and the bottom layer grips your counter top. This is lovely because I prefer to roll dough between two layers of parchment and this keeps the parchment from slipping on my counter top. Love it, especially as what I think of as gingerbread construction season arrives.

There are so many options for what tricks you can hide inside, here I used some black cake decorations made by Wilton, they are complete edible but don’t taste like much. I also considered some small flat sour gummy candies, salted licorice coins, various cake decorations (skull and crossbones!) and Pop Rocks. For the treats the only things could find that are small enough are mini M&Ms or (my favorite) Valrhona Perles Craquant. Sadly I found that Reeses Pieces or candy corn wouldn’t fit inside, I tried. A friend mentioned that mini-candy corn might exist in the world and if I’d managed to find some I definitely would have used that as well.

I’m also considering seeing if I can make the coffin cookies tall enough to fill with some sugar skeleton pieces I found. I’d also include the Valrhona Perles Craquant as graveyard dirt. And small gummi worms if I can find some.

Click more for the recipe.

Trick-or-Treat Cookies Recipe

• 12.0 ounces (2.5 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I love the vanilla paste made by Nielsen-Massey)
• gel food coloring (optional)

for the glue:
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 4 teaspoons milk

to go inside:
• mini M&Ms or other small treat candy
• cake decorations or other small trick candy

Directions:

Mix together your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt).

Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for a minute more. If you’re adding food coloring put a few drops in now, it’ll be easier to see how much you need to add later and speed the process up.

With your mixer on a low speed gradually add half your flour. Take a moment to add more food coloring here if you’re using it and think you need it. Mix everything on low for a minute here, we need these cookies to be strong over tender so developing a little gluten won’t hurt. Add the rest of the flour and mix until everything all comes together.

Divide the dough into two balls. Flatten each a little and wrap individually in plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge until firm, four hours or overnight.

Each amount of dough will make six to eight Trick-or-Treat Cookies.

Note: I tried a number of cut out cookie recipes that spread too much for me and settled on a recipe from Real Simple that @seventenclark on Twitter pointed me towards and for which I ended up making a few changes. If you have a cut out cookie recipe you like go ahead and use it. I didn’t get to test the following recipes but they were also recommended on Twitter: Inchmark, Joy of Cooking, Dorie Greenspan, Annie’s Eats, and Jamie’s grandmother’s recipe. Thanks everybody!

Happy Halloween!

A R D O R: DIY MINI SURPRISE BALL PUMPKIN. Via Say Yes to Hoboken.

Halloween Food: Piggy Coffins! | The GastroGnome.

Skull Votives | Freshly Picked. I love the glittery interiors of these, and I love that they are a pretty easy and impressive DIY.

The Sexy Zombie Vampire Halloween Makeup Tutorial | The Hairpin.

Martha Stewart’s Haunted House! – The Crafts Dept. Love.

Spooky & Playful: The Best Halloween Treats for 2011 | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn. And, hooray, they included my Tentacle Pot Pies!

Wrapping Up a Night of WitchCRAFT | Make and Takes. Full of good Halloween projects. (Wish I could have joined you ladies!)

Eyeball Cookies · Edible Crafts. Very simple and wonderful.

Phobias on the IPAD – The Crafts Dept. Do you see those ghosts? They’re amazing, and simple.

Sprinkle Bakes: Pumpkin Cheesecake with Sugared Pumpkin Seeds, at Sprinkle Bakes. The pumpkin seed decorations here are sorta spooky.

These are photos of the test Zombie Head Cheese we created, thus the poor lighting and the two kinds of cheese. But I wanted to show you the idea for a tongue that I decided to skip.

I carved the tongue from a block of Spam I had coaxed out of the can as a whole rectangular chunk. Know what? Spam is surprisingly easy to carve. It’s also very slippery.

The tongue was ghastly. And since the skull wasn’t secure in order to keep the jaw open it tilted to one side when we attempted to scoop some cheese off. Eeek.

In the end I decided to drop the tongue made of Spam in part because it was slippery and in part because it smelled too strongly for me to recommend. But, if you want to have a go at making a Spam tongue it is really effective.

I made you something for Halloween. You can serve it a party. Or maybe make it as a snack for your viewing party of The Walking Dead.

These are both made of soft cheese spread on a plastic skull. Easy. Creepy. Delicious. That is, if you can get people to dig in.

Version 1

You know that old trick of unwrapping a block of cream cheese and topping it with soy sauce and some sesame seeds? Yum right? I added some food coloring and a life sized plastic skull and called it Halloween worthy.

(This is version #1, a slightly easier version is just below.)

First get a life sized plastic skull (wash it really well), some soy sauce, one 12 ounce tub of cream cheese spread and some food coloring. Tint the cream cheese to a fleshy color, I used about 15 drops of red and 10 drops of yellow here.

I found a plastic skull like this one at a local party supplies store, but I really wish I’d managed to find a plastic skull where the top of the head is removable. Something really frightening could be made with that. Spinach dip brains anybody?

Then add just one drop of blue food coloring and stir only a few times until the blue appears streaky. Less is more here, it will further streak as you spread it. Now, frost your skull like a cake. Start with the tricky bits around the face first. If you can’t hold the crown of the head to stabilize the skull it makes it much more complicated. Try to keep the teeth clean.

A detail of the blue-streaked cream cheese.

I used a small flexible spatula to spread this. There is no need to be tidy here, the messier the grossier. Grosser? Grossest? You know what I mean.

You can also stick a few rectangles of parchment paper surrounding the head so you can be a bit messy while frosting and then pull them out after you are done, a trick I learned about frosting cakes. If you can putting the head on a smaller plate on top of a larger plate will be useful to catch the fake blood, and it will be easy to artfully arrange the crackers. Saltines are the traditional cracker for this but these more artisanal crackers I found looked like creepy bandages and still have that bland and salty taste you want. You can frost your head a few hours early and refrigerate. It’s amusing to sit nearby and observe as unsuspecting people open the fridge.

Cocktail onions create nice dead eyes.

Just before serving mix a bit of soy sauce with some drops of red food coloring and drizzle it over the head so that is streams down. I used a pipette but if you don’t have one handy a small measuring cup with a pour spout or a carefully wielded spoon will work just as well. If you can get the soy sauce to pool around the onion eyes, it looks extra creepy that way. Also sprinkle on some bugs, I mean, toasted sesame seeds.

It’s even scarier after it’s been eaten. Yikes.

Version #2

This is version #2, it’s slightly less involved. You just need spreadable cheese, cocktail onions and a plastic skull. Let’s face it, just about any pink or orange tinted spreadable cheese will look suitably disgusting.

I used this cheese that has reddish port wine streaks in it. I didn’t manage to capture the reddish colors in these pictures as well as I hoped but I promise it was pretty gross looking.

I’m smitten. What should I name it?

Everything You Need to Know About Carving a Pumpkin | Serious Eats.

How-To: Brains in a Jar Cake @Craftzine.com blog.

Halloween Panna Cotta · Edible Crafts. Eyeball!

Cupcake Ghosts · Edible Crafts. Cute, and they look easy to create.

How to Make a Delicious Glow-in-the-Dark Punch for Halloween – CHOW.

A question about zombies. Specifically, Zombie Stories. Extra specifically, Zombie Stories that Don’t Suck. | Ask MetaFilter. Zombie book recommendations.

Spider Cake in a Jar · Edible Crafts | CraftGossip.com. I love how they topped this jar!

Modern Parents Messy Kids: Handmade Halloween: Make Spider Sack Decor with the Kids. A very clever take on the string wrapped balloon thing.

Modern Parents Messy Kids: Handmade Halloween: Etsy Costume Roundup.

Take This Halloween Costume Idea … Please | The Hairpin. Scott and I have dressed up as ceiling fans before. All it took was a trip to Joanns for some t-shirts and iron on lettering. Silly but easy.

How to Make a Spooky Halloween Mirror | The New Home Ec.

Help me build a list of props for a Zork adventurer Halloween costume. | Ask MetaFilter. Awesome.

elope – springy spider headband. I tried one of these in a shop and really liked it.

Cocktail name costumes. | Ask MetaFilter.

Hostess with the Mostess – Halloween Cocktails. I love the caramel spider web that sits on top of the glass.

zakka life: Sealed With a Spider.

shelterrific » hardcore halloween: decorating with real spider webs.

The Place Where Everything is Better on a Stick by MaroDesigns. Felt shapes on a stick for an instant costume, so delightful. Via Heinous Hats.

DIY Nemo Fish Costume for Your Toddler  | Mighty Girl. A great how to for the cutest costume yet.

The Last Minute Ghost – Bolt Neighborhood.

Seeking Sweetness in Everyday Life – CakeSpy – Trick Or Sweet: A Look at the History of the Custom of Trick or Treating.

Heinous Hats: Son Of Boom De Yada. I love the spider hat, third image down.

Homemade Owl Pellets. Yuck! – The Crafts Dept. These are so much fun. I always dreaded the smell of taking apart real owl pellets in school.

How to Preserve a Halloween Pumpkin – Keep a Jack O’ Lantern Fresh, at My Science Project.

Pumpkin Cornbread (with Pumpkin Chili, of course)! | recipegirl.com.

Craftzine.com blog : CRAFT Pattern: Pumpkin Cozy.

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Liquid Latex Scales.

A pumpkin that sleeps like a Mac – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Adore this.

Looking for horror films that feature death by knitting needle. | Ask MetaFilter.

Best of Parent Hacks: Easy Halloween Tips | Parent Hacks.

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Lego Indiana Jones Costume.

Jelly Shot Test Kitchen: Jellied Eyeballs (non-alcoholic).

Super Punch: Halloween fun food ideas. Great round up of ideas and recipes.

Googly Eye Fun! – The Crafts Dept. Oh boy do I love the googly eyes attached to the shoes.

illoom Balloons, at Outblush. Balloons with LEDs inside.

I had some trouble when I came to creating the Tentacle Pot Pies, all my own fault of course. Learn from these mistakes.

Originally I had intended to makes spider pot pies and use black peppercorns for the eyes. My first try, which I didn’t get photos of, had the legs dangling over the edges of a bowl. While they cooked most fell off. It was pretty sad.

Then I draped the legs down to a plate to keep them in place, only to discover that the dough I had rolled up to create a spider body (I wrapped it round a piece of hot carrot) didn’t cook on the inside, leaving a wad of uncooked dough on top of the pot pie. Effective to give the creeps but not really edible.

And I found that one of my spider heads tilted down while cooking. Poor guy.

Originally I had intended to make the pot pies from puff pastry and mention the use of crescent roll dough as an option but I had some trouble while photographing. First I lost my light by the time I got to the puff pastry batch, I struggle enough to produce good photos so when the clouds gathered I was rushing and it probably led to the next problem.

I forgot to brush the puff pastry with an egg wash, meaning that even though it was yummy it looked sort of pale.

And so, the crescent dough photos were the ones I used. I had run out of time to redo everything (I would have had to make another batch of pot pie filling). But for the record I like the flavor of the puff pastry far more. It also cooks slower so your pot pie had more time to get nice and hot.

The following weekend Scott and I made a batch of pot pie filling from the chicken pot pie recipe at Simply Recipes and divided it into zip top bags that we flattened out and froze. We can buy frozen puff pastry and the next dark night when we need some comfort food we’ll have pot pie components that we just need to thaw and assemble. I’m excited. Seattle winters aren’t snowy but they are long and dark. So dark. We take excitement where we can find it. One additional note: These should be baked at about 325 instead of the usual high heat that puff pastry asks for, if not the tentacles cook far earlier than the body. If the tips of the tentacles start to brown too much tent them with foil.

Why freezing flat in plastic bags? They are easy to store in the freezer, and when you want to thaw them you can run the still sealed bags under hot water and it thaws far faster than something frozen into a block. I first heard this tip on The Splendid Table, though I forget which guest it came from. I use this for bolognese and thai curry as well, all good to have squirreled away for winter nights when you’re too zonked out for chopping stuff.

Know what happens when you search Google for “tentacle pot pie”? Not much.* Let’s fix that! I created this tentacle pot pie for Babble using store bought dough. Easy and a wee bit creepy. Even if you’re not up for tentacles I found this chicken pot pie from Simply Recipes to be most delicious. Babble has also posted a short interview with me, thanks!

* (At least not when you have safe search turned on, oh my.)

Dexter Blood Slide Suckers: Eat At Your Own Risk!. at Instructables.

Halloween Food. at Instructables.

The 8-Bit Low-Res Make-Up Is High-Res Clever – Pixelface – Gizmodo.

Papercraft Self Portrait – Art Portfolio for Eric Testroete. Amazing big head mode costume.

Adam’s Spooky Candy Apples | MattBites.com.

It’s About Time: A Quality Zombie Jello Mold – Geekologie.

Do it myself!: Melting Head Cake.

Extreme Halloween – meat corpse, created for a cookout, from the guy behind Extreme Pumpkins.

Mischievous Monsters Halloween Party Treats – iVillage. They included my spider pumpkin pancakes from last year!

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Milk Jug Storm Trooper Helmet. Milk jug Halloween costume #1.

shelterrific » Blog Archive » halloween diy: knight in shining milk jug. Milk jug Halloween costume #2.

crafts to make with, and for, kids – paper masks » whip up.

Bowl of Eye-Balls | Flamingo Toes. Creepy enough while still being cute.

Top 10 Haunted Homes in the U.S. | Zillow Blog. Franklin Castle, a Cleveland legend, is #5, just after the White House.

Eerily Delicious Halloween Dinner, at Instructables. I like how these are real foods but look creepy.

plumpudding: Spaghetti dogs. This is brilliant, and I bet easy to spookify.

Stitches of Violet: Stitch Patterns Making Me Batty. I *love* the spider knitting pattern she shows here, I want a scarf with these on the ends.

Bottle Staches · Edible Crafts. Ha ha ha ha! Mustaches for your bottle, like costumes!

Threadcakes | Bitter Teeth Threadless cake by Chloe Bird. This chocolate drenched skull cake is amazing.

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Baked Salt Dough Organ Platter For Halloween.

HOWTO Make jello blood-worms – Boing Boing.

Pumpkin Carving: Cool Tools and Gadgets – DIY Life. They cover both basic and extreme carving tools.

All through October I’m collecting doable DIY projects and inspiration for Halloween over at Parents Connect. The focus here is on non-intimidating projects for busy parents and we’re covering the spectrum from decorations to books to crafts. We’ll be ending with Halloween cocktails for grown ups because, let’s face it, you’ll deserve one. Last Monday was an introduction, the rest of the month will feature heaps of links for you.

Holidash let me go a little crazy again and this time I made trick-or-treating bags that glow using glow sticks. (Psst, I made it so that the glow sticks light up the interior as well so your kid can check and see what candy they just got.)

And iVillage included my spider pumpkin pancakes in a round up of Halloween foods. Lots of great stuff there!

I got this box in the mail the other day. Inside was this:

Creepy!

I sort of want the dress.

You can find instructions for this and a whole lot of decoration and costume projects here at the Value Village website. Most (all?) of them created by Blair of Wise Craft.

Halloween Recipe: Chocolate + Pumpkin = Chumpkins – Holidays News – Holidash. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies you say?

Pumpkin Rice Pudding | Real Simple Recipes. Something to make soon.

Dabbled » Article » Halloween Food: The Mummy’s Hand.. Taking the hot dog mummy idea and running with it, so creepy.

a few of my favorite halloween projects this year – wise craft. I love the stitches in the candle wrap.

Make: Online : Zombie shadowcaster.

Make: Online : How-To: Light-up costume.

Make: Online : Desaturated Santa costume.

Fat Bug Cake Pan « Baking Bites. Awesome, and versatile.

Tutorial: Gathered fabric pumpkin softie · Craft Gossip. This is simple and lovely.

DAVE LOWE DESIGN the blog: 104 Days ’til Halloween: Bloody, Dripping, Head Sack How-To. Ew.

DIY Halloween Accessories For Your Home | HOLIDAYS / DIY / CRAFT | Zandland Blog. I adore the bloody handprint shower curtain.

Crafty Crafty: Halloween: how to make spider web balloons. This is a really fantastic effect.

Halloween Bundle at the Maker Shed.

Bake It in a Cake • Bloody Brain Cupcakes. Surprise marzipan brain baked inside.

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Meat Head.

I have come down with a sneezy sort of cold. I managed to rally enough on Sunday to make this cinnamon swirl cake. It’s from a mix and I added some extra fancy cinnamon which was given to me by Cinnamon (thanks again!). The results: I can report that one boxed mix will make plenty of cake to fill both sides of the skull cake pan. Tastewise, however, you’re better off making a coffee cake from scratch, if you have the energy. And now I’m going back to bed where I can be pitiful and feel sorry for myself while eating cake.

Ok, look. I know it’s maybe a bit early to be talking about Halloween but I myself think that celebrating Halloween for 1/6th of the year is perfectly reasonable. Also I want you to know about this so you can made as many skull shaped cakes as possible before Halloween because a mid-November skull cake is far less acceptable to take into the office than an early-October skull cake.

(Please excuse the crumbs on his nose, you have to trim the cake after it comes out of the pan and, this being my trial run, things got a little messy.)

This is a 3-D skull cake pan sold by Wilton. You can also find it on Amazon and at the usual suspects of craft stores, at least during the Halloween season.

I went through a serious crush on the 3-D pumpkin cake pan a few years back but never bought it, and I still look fondly at the giant cupcake pan when I see it but again I’ve never inspired to buy. But when I found this skull pan in I immediately grabbed it and carried it around the store with me while looking for all the stuff I came for, just in case all three pans on the shelf were gone by the time I came back around. Even though it was, at the time, August. At first I thought I might be overreacting but when I returned to the store a few days later all the pans were gone. It justified my crazy. A bit.

The back part of the skull is molded so that it sits at just the right angle to stare up at you menacingly from the plate.

The pan comes with a pumpkin spice cake recipe, and while making it I rediscovered how much I like the color orange.

Also, thanks to a wonderful girl who happens to be named Cinnamon, I had two types of cinnamon to choose from to use in the cake. The cake was good but too sweet for my preferences. I hope to change it a bit and then maybe add a cream cheese frosting brain surprise inside. Or, oh oh!, cream cheese frosting maggots. Ew.

The pan is nicely heavy and with a little Baker’s Joy I had no trouble getting the cake to slide out. (A tip from Alton Brown: spray it over the open door of your dishwasher, it won’t leave your floor or countertops slippery and it’s a surface that will be washed anyhow.)

I’m in love with this face.

What should I name him?

The plastic skeleton embedded in an ice sphere was a lot of fun. In a drink it sort of rotated around on it’s own and showed different bones, creepy.

On the left are gummy eyeballs I froze in a swizzle stick ice tray I found at Daiso, these were creepy submerged in a drink that had gone opaque (see just below). On the right is black vodka and orange juice, which turned a nicely disgusting greenish beige when mixed.

It took a few tries but I finally figured out how to float vodka in a flute. I filled the glass with juice (or tonic and lime), put in ice, put the vodka in a OXO small measuring cup with a spout and slowly poured the vodka, aiming it towards the topmost ice cube. It usually worked.

On the left is cranberry and vodka and small sphere ice, created in a tray bought at Daiso. The right is blood orange juice and black vodka (which I failed to float properly). There is a gummy eyeball on the end of a cocktail pick. I like the effect of the eyeball at the bottom of the glass. (The gummy eyeballs were from Target and tasted horrible.)

Vodka and tonic before and after mixing. In person it looked a lot more gray than green.

These are Brains! cocktails made in small shot glasses. I had good luck using a pipette to dispense the Irish cream, I dipped the end in the drink and slowly squeezed the Irish cream into the drink while moving the pipette around. I found this technique at Folkinz, which used a straw to a nice effect. The glasses on either side were given small droplets, but didn’t look quite as spooky. They looked my like a cocktail that would be named Lymph Nodes!

Here is another skeleton layered inside of a squarish ice cube.

This is a White Russian made with black vodka, turning it a delightfully sickly gray/beige.

I attempted to capture the Frozen Smiles ice floating in tonic and cranberry, it looked creepier in person.

Trivia: the center glass is from Disgruntled Housewife and was aquired in a Smile and Act Nice gift bag from SXSW 2000 or 2001. If you’re a knitter you might know Nicole better as the author of Thrifty Knitter (a website) and Naughty Needles (a book), and co-owner of The Harveyville Project (two middle schools in Kansas turned into spaces to encourage creative output, a daring and genius prospect). I’ve admired Nicole from afar for as long as I can remember, Disgruntled Housewife was one of the first websites I read.

My friend Maggi made these amazing (and delicious) gravestone cookies.

And here is my Halloween mirror picture. I was wearing synthetic hair extensions for the evening, my hair isn’t nearly this long:

Hello!

What are some essential horror films for a movie marathon? | Ask Metafilter.

Make me deathly pale! | Ask Metafilter.

RECIPE: Breadstick Bones on Flickr. Cute idea for something savory to serve.

Halloween Food – Meat Head 2 on Flickr. I’m not sure if this is made by the same person but the meat head is one of the things I linked to way, way back in 2001.

earwax on a swab on Flickr. I could not eat this, but I like this idea.

Easy & Expert Recipes For Halloween Fingers | YumSugar. I love the way these are curled around a cup.

Note to self: buy Matthew Mead’s Halloween books Halloween Tricks and Treats and Monster Book of Halloween.

Blood and Bones at Joy the Baker. Red hot chocolate and meringue bones!

Ghostly Eggs at Serious Eats. These are so darn cute.

How to make fake blood, at Wired.

This melting head cake is astounding. The whole thing is edible, with cake brains, a royal icing skull, edible eyeballs that popped open and oozed, a layer of red jam covered by frosting skin and topped with cotton candy hair. It was set under a heat lamp and allowed to melt in the most dramatic and incredible way. You must read to the bottom to see the melting pictures, I insist, go go. Bravo!

Zombie jello mold at Geekologie.

Bloody Tooth Cocktail at Martha Stewart, another one to make using black vodka.

Three shrimp cocktail brains: one, two, three.

First I found these gummy eyeballs at Target. They come in their own ice tray, you just add water and freeze.

I went to a Halloween store hoping to find white plastic fangs to embed in ice. Instead I found these teeth molds, called Frozen Smiles made by Fred. I think I like them even more.

I also found these plastic skeleton pieces which are small enough to fit into my ice ball mold from Muji. note: You should not ever put something small into ice that is intended to be put in a drink. Especially not if there are children present. Or drunk adults.

I layered it in the ice of the sphere, making several trips in and out of the freezer. Here is my trial ice sphere floating in a glass of water:

I’ve seen these same plastic skeletons used to decorate cupakes, here and here on Flickr.

(image from marthastewart.com)

And I intend to try out this eery Lychee eyeball garnish and see if I can freeze it inside of an ice ball. There is another Lychee eyeball at Martha Stewart along with a grape eyeball and this savory option of using radishes and olives. Yikes.

apple cider doughnuts | smitten kitchen.

I’m going as the sky. What is a good complimentary costume for my friend? | Ask Metafilter. My favorite suggestion was someone who says “scuse me” and kisses you a lot.

The Son of Man Halloween Costume on Flickr. From the Ask Metafilter thread above.

The Periodic Elements of Style: Hallowe’Etsy!.

Door Sixteen » Etsy wants.. The things from Mudpuppy are creepy.

bat boy lantern lit on Flickr. This is from she who is behind Suspect and Fugitive and Year of Deer, which I love-love.

Poison Labels on Flickr. Via this fabulous use of them by My Paper Crane.

Outside our chamber door on Flickr. I love how simple and effective this decoration is.

Bloody Brain Pannacotta @Not Quite Nigella.

“Bloody Brain Shooters” – Neatorama.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds at Simply Recipes. Really good advice on what type of pumpkins to use and how to cook the shell-on seeds for the best possible results. Lovely.

I made something gruesome and delicious.

No, really, it was good.

This is meatloaf.

Meatloaf with cheese on top.

And some ketchup.

The nails are made of onion.

The wrist bones are onion too.

Where are you going?

This is how I made it:

Since August I’ve had a post it note over my desk that simply said “meat hand”. I mulled over how to make it for a while. I realized that the old formed inside a plastic glove thing wouldn’t work since the fingers would cook so much faster than the rest of the hand. It wasn’t until I saw this hand gelatin mold that I had my plan:

I shot several angles to show how it has a base built in, meaning I could probably use it to mold meatloaf.

I made the basic meatloaf recipe from How to Cook Everything using a food processor to chop the onions and carrot to a very fine mince so I could fill in the details of the mold without trouble. One meatloaf recipe using 2 pounds of meat will make two hands.

I sprayed the inside of the mold with cooking oil spray and it came out fairly easily. I put it on top of a rack to allow the fat to run off as it cooked.

I did a few versions, learning as I went along.

Version #1

The first one was straight meatloaf. I surrounded it with mashed potatoes and kale (or brain matter and swamp greens if you have kids, or just act like kids). It looked ok, sort of creepy:

Version #2

The next time I tried adding fingernails made of onion, which were just like press on nails:

To make the fingernails I sliced a thin round off of a single layer of an onion, then used kitchen scissors to trim it into a nail shape keeping the lines in the onion running the length of the nail. I kept the thinnest end of the onion slice at the tip of the nail. (Shown here using a red onion as it’s easier to see details.)

I also covered it with ketchup before cooking:

It turned out gross:

This time to better define the fingers I piped mashed potatoes around the hand to define the shape. I just used a ziploc bag with a small corner snipped off to do the detail inbetween fingers, then I snipped off a larger corner to pipe around the hand. I smoothed down the mashed potatoes with a silicone spatula. The results where pretty creepy.

Version #3

The ketchup covered hand made me pretty happy but… I had this idea. My mom used to throw a slice of cheese on top of her meatloaf before cooking it and the cheese always turned out browned and crispy. I wondered how that would work with my relatively delicate hand. I also had the idea to use the smaller inner layers of the onion to create a cartoon-y wrist bone sticking out.

I made two versions. The first used white onion and was simply covered in cheese. The second used red onion and was covered with ketchup and then cheese. I used slices of provolone cheese because I knew it wouldn’t slide off completely as it melted. (Maggi suggested it, thanks Maggi!) This time I used the version of meatloaf with spinach, again from How to Cook Everything. Here are some pre-cooked pictures:

I peeled an onion until I got to the smaller inner layers and simply pressed it into the wrist:

I trimmed the cheese to fit around the fingernails:

If I were to do it again I would have put less cheese around the fingers, or rather, I would have put narrower pieces. The cheese pooled inbetween the fingers and made it more difficult to diguise later on.

This cheese thing, it worked a bit too well. We couldn’t bring ourselves to actually eat either of them (though, we had been eating a lot of meatloaf lately). Here is a picture showing them side by side. They were cooked at the same time and the one with the ketchup beneath the cheese (white fingernails) browned a bit more. You can also see that piping the detail more carefully can make a difference:

The wrist bone of the white onion was pushed out a bit as the meatloaf cooked:

The smaller onion piece of the red onion write bone wasn’t as impressive:

The red onion fingernails were creepier, but the white onion fingernails might get the point across more quickly:

Here is a cute pumpkin pancake chaser:

Just in case you need it.

These are light and fluffy pumpkin pancakes made extra orange with food coloring and decorated for Halloween breakfast using cinnamon syrup that has been colored a dark black. I’m a bit obsessed with piping spiders onto things. Spiders scare the bejeezus out of me so it’s not surprising I turn to them at Halloween.

The pancakes are delicious, I can say this since it isn’t my recipe. The recipe comes from Noble Pig, whom I’d like to thank for being bold enough to put a whole stick of butter into the batter. They need to cook a little longer than my usual pancakes and I found they needed a slightly lower heat than I’d normally use or they’d burn before the proper amount of bubbles came to the surface.

I added twice the cinnamon to the syrup and cooked it a little longer to make sure it would be thick enough to pipe. When I took it off the heat my syrup read 213 degrees, just barely over boiling.

Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Syrup

(Recipe from Noble Pig.com, with a few small changes by Not Martha.org.)

Very Orange Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg, separated
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• orange food coloring gel

In a large bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

In a medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolk with a fork. Add milk, pumpkin puree and vanilla; mix well. Add melted butter. If the butter is hot, add it slowly or you will cook your egg yolk. Add a bit of the orange food coloring to the wet mixture at this point. Add more until it’s about as orange as you can stand. Stir this mixture into dry ingredients, just until combined.

In another bowl, beat egg white until stiff peaks form. Gently fold egg white into batter.

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat and grease lightly with vegetable oil. For each pancake, spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto the hot griddle. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the edges look dry. Turn over and cook until golden brown. The pancakes are delicate so stick to making small or medium sized pancakes, I put cracks in a few larger ones trying to flip them over.

Black Cinnamon Syrup

• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/2 brown sugar
• 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup water
• black food coloring gel

In a saucepan combine white sugar, brown sugar, all-purpose flour and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients together. Add vanilla extract and water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Be really careful while boiling sugar, keep a bowl of ice water nearby just in case. As it heats squirt in a little of the black food coloring and mix in, add more until it’s as dark as can be (it doesn’t take much). Allow to boil for a few moments until the mixture has noticeably thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to put into a squirt bottle (of the ketchup style). You can make it the night before and warm it by dipping the squeeze bottle in a bowl of warm water. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.

Decorate the pancakes with the syrup. By all means decorate the plate with extra syrup. I find spiders, spider webs and bats work out well. Serve with sausages, sausages are creepy looking enough on their own.

Here are some of the designs I tried that didn’t quite work as I’d envisioned, a few details, and my first trials. What I’m not showing you is the two small pancakes I meant to look like a pair of eyeballs but ended up looking like a pair of something else, if you know what I mean.

Happy Halloween!

note: This post was originally part of a Halloween foods round-up called Trick-Or-Eat, the graphics for this have been moved from the top of the post to the bottom, right here:

Welcome to Not Martha’s Trick-Or-Eat post. Today, nine favorite food, craft & lifestyle bloggers await behind nine haunted houses with an array of holiday treats created just for you. At the end of this post, you will find two of these mystery houses. To join in the holiday fun, simply click on one of the buttons and you’ll be linked to the next home on the block. You can also discover all of the Trick-Or-TrEAT contributors and find direct links to their posts at Trick-Or-TrEAT. Happy Halloweening!

Whooo’s Next? To see what other Trick-Or-TrEAT hosts have cooked up for your viewing pleasure, click on one of the haunted homes below:

On Monday, October 26th I’m participating in Trick-Or-TrEAT event where nine bloggers will be posting something Halloween-y and linking to the next person in the list. It’s like an oldey timey webring (are those still around?), or a blog block party. I’m flattered to be in the company of Tartelette, Recipe Girl, Closet Cooking, Dinner With Julie, Sophistimom, Heather Bailey, Kitchen Scraps, and Tongue-N-Cheeky. It’s gonna be good so be sure to come see what everybody has prepared on Monday.

• Sasha Corset, those ruffles!
• Hooded gown, this would be great to wear while making gravestone rubbings.
• BMovie tentacles, with monster eyes on the hood.
• Pink and black corset dress, just look at that bustle.
• Dr. Horrible costume, awww, he’s so wee and so evil.

• Zombified slip dress, for that zombie crawl you’re joining in on.
• Dorothy Bustier, it’s on sale.
• Halloween headband, love the dangling spider.
• Little Mummy Baby Shoes, I love the one eye peeking out.
• Black Spider Headband, I love that this could pass until you look closely for the spider.

• Trick or Treat Skully Love hair clip, wear it to work.
• Blood Bath Mask, this one scared me.
• Vintage black feather hat, this is gorgeous.
• Plush Angel Wings, I like the cartoony quality of these.
• Muppet Hair Wig, so fun.

• Crocheted Vampire Bite chocker, made of silk and cashmere.
• Voodoo Zombie Dreads Custom Made For you, love these.
• Marie Antoinette Yarn and Ribbon Head Dress, this deserves an very poofy dress.
• Spider Web Umbrella, clever.
• Fire Berry, wet felted scarf.

• My Evil Scientist goggles, c’mon, you know you want to go as Dr. Horrible.
• Knitted witch hat pattern, to felt, I love this tall peak.
• Lobster/Crab Claws, to keep your little one’s hands warm.
• Knitted Eye Gloves, giving you something to hide behind.
• Bandana with a mustache, it’s still funny to me.

• Exterminate! pin, go as an undercover Dahlek.
• Boris, it’s reserved but it’s awesome.
• Sol mask, I love how bright this is.
• Cauldron necklace, so cute.
• Boris the spider necklace, the center is cement.

• Black Stitches Choker, no longer available for this year, but I’m keeping in mind for next year.
• Mad Hatter Ring, really great.
• Dead or Alive, fangs you can also fit into your mouth (for your transformation).
• anis estrella, alien necklace, it’s a cast of a star anise and it’s spooky enough all on it’s own
• Grave Dirt Soap, unique hostess gift?

• Gas Mask Necklace, let’s face it, what’s really frightening us is expressed here.
• Arm Earrings, I like the suggestion that you ripped them off of a magical fairy.
• Finger soaps, that would be so creepy to suds up with.
• Spooky Paper Fortune Cookies, for your party.
• Halloween Party Pint Glasses, hand etched.

• Nosferatu Shadow Vinyl Wall Art, eeek.
• Nail jar candle, delightful.
• Zombie Attack Lamp Shade, oh my god run!
• Spider stained glass placecard holders, simple and spooky.
• Yorick the Mouse Skeleton, sold but so great.

• Dog Trick or Treat, your dog deserves themed food as well.
• Vintage goblet set, these would hold your halloween punch nicely, no?
• Goodie Bags, a download for those last minute party needs.
• DIY Bewitched Black and White Halloween Banner Kit, forigve me but this is delightful and Martha-y.
• Halloween Haunted House Pop Up Card, I love how simple this is.

• Trick or Treat Halloween Banner, nicely aged looking.
• Paper Mums Purple Halloween Mix, for your table.
• Why is a raven like a writing desk? Hand paper cut quote.
• One Inch Skulls Round Seals, to seal the goodie bags.

And here are the items that were featured in my Guest Curator post, kept here as well for the purposes of posterity, and because they’re lovely:

• Instant Cemetery, for your table or mantle.
• Little Miss Muffet corset dress, this creeped me out.
• Monster Cereal Bowl, I want to comfort this little guy.
• Bat Wing Neck Corset, stunning.
• Glass bird skull, lovely and spooky.

• Zombies Attack Pack Vinyl Wall Art, oh my god run!
• Tentacle earrings, I love that they are unmatched. How creepy is seeing tentacles sprouting from someone’s earlobes?
• Bite Me hand painted shoes, I love these.
• Leaf leather mask, delicate and properly scary.
• Sea Nymph pigtail set, or a perky witch?

• Jurassic Amber Soap, this would make a great hostess gift.
• Autopsy T-shirt, stitched by a former funeral director. Enough said, yes?
• Silver Spider Earrings, lovely and cute.
• The Incredible Visible Man, remember this? Great vintage find.
• Mr. Wonderful finger puppet, he is ready. with his costume.

• Handsoap set, creepy in it’s multitude.
• Undead We t-shirt, if you’re stuck in line you can pass the time naming all the characters.
• Gothic Halloween download, everything you need for party decorations. Would be great for a last minute Let’s Have A Party moment.
• Vintage party tray, so great, so orange.
• Spider temporary tattoos, so creepy when placed on the neck. Or the back of a shoulder, or on your leg just below the hem of a skirt. Shudder.

• Pumpkin Pie truffles, I love the pleasingly plump shape of these.
• Sexy Bats nylons, these look all sold out but I love them and hope they bring them back next year.

If you want more check out Etsy’s ever-updating Halloween guides to Costumes, Gifts, Trends and Tricks, Treats and Parties.

Halloween Recipes | Mummy Meatloaf Recipe. Wrapped in lasagna noodles, cute.

How to Create a Giant Spider Meatloaf for Halloween. Using breadsticks for legs!

disgusting meatloaf head on Flickr.

Dead Man’s Foot Halloween Meatloaf on Flickr.

Serve Pumpkin Tarte Tatin at your sophisticated Halloween party – Slashfood.

Blogwatch: Cranberry Curd Pavlova | Serious Eats. Ok, this is not a Halloween item, but the picture looks creepy without context and I think it could be an inspiration for something.

Tricked-Out Caramel Apples – CHOW.

Glow-in-the-Dark Gin and Tonic Jelly Recipe by – CHOW.

Halloween Food – Meat Head on Flickr.

Blavod Black Vodka Review | Liquor Snob.

Mad Eye Martini Cocktail Recipe.

mental_floss Blog » Creepy Halloween Party Food. Including my spider cakes, thanks!

Funny/punny/scary names to put on fake tombstones for Halloween. | Ask Metafilter.

Spider Web Cupcake Wrappers by CupcakeFlair on Etsy. Thanks to Conny for pointing me towards these!

Staircase Silhouette – Creepy Crafts – MarthaStewart.com.

Head-Waiter Tray – on marthastewart.com.

Creepy Candles – on marthastewart.com.

mental_floss Blog » The Art of the Jack-O-Lantern: More than just a pretty face!.

mental_floss Blog » Do-It-Yourself Molded Pumpkins.

Ultra Modern Livingwares for You and Your Home by soule on Etsy. Zombie dishware!

Invisible Lollipops, on marthastewart.com.

Savory Pumpkin Puffs – Eerie Edibles – Halloween Central – MarthaStewart.com.

Eye-Popping Soup – Eerie Edibles – Halloween Central – MarthaStewart.com.

Eyeball Highballs – Halloween Cocktails and Drinks – Halloween Central – MarthaStewart.com.

Shrunken Heads in Cider – Halloween Cocktails and Drinks – Halloween Central – MarthaStewart.com.

Wool Windings: The Pumpkin Patch. Miniature pumpkin, to knit and then felt.

I’ve managed to come down with a cold for the best day of the year, and despite sleeping dangerously late into the day I’ve got some links. Cough, sniffle.

Salty Pie-Spiced Pumpkin Seeds at Hogwash

The 7 Types of Pet Costumes at Cute Overload

Kids Halloween Candy Code, via Neatorama

Vampire Cookies at Baking Bites

Melon Brains at Instructables

Bones of the Dead Cookies at Craftzine

Fish/Monster Lampshade at Craftzine

And if you’re similarly sick and stuck inside, some reading. These are free zombie novels by David Wellington written in blog format. Scott read these as they were released and enjoyed them. Also, the column width is perfect for reading on an iPhone. If you prefer paper all the books have been published. Start here with Monster Island.

savory pumpkin puffs at Martha Stewart Online, I have a large pumpkin shaped cookie cutter and I’m looking forward to making these soon

chocolate covered witch hats at Baking Bites

best dog costume, at The Stranger

pumpkin farms in Seattle, go forth and get lost in a corn maze

how to roast a pumpkin at Food Chronicles

at Neatorama:

Zombie Wall Decals!!

24 Tales of Ghost Towns and Abandoned Cities

The Outbreak — An Interactive Zombie Movie

Martha Stewart Crafts Paper-Mache Treat Balls Kit

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories a dark detecting circuit for your jack-o’-lantern and a round up of halloween projects

The books Extreme Pumpkins and Extreme Pumpkins II from the Extreme Pumpkins site

Defective Yeti’s Halloween Gaming Guide

Craftzine has a bunch of good stuff, some that has caught my eye: Make a Gilded Lace Crown, Fishbowl Pumpkin, Halloween Cocktails, Spooky Tree Face Pattern, and the Knit Monster Head

And because I am a fan of Kevin Smith, a simple costume idea for the very bold: Zach and Miri masks (note: Not Safe For Work, or kids, you can spot some bits of bits).

They rang a distant tinny bell in the back of my head that meant I’d seen something similar before and I found these in the Martha Stewart Living Halloween book, Savory Autumn Leaf Pies:

In searching I also found these Savory Autumn Leaf Pies that are in the Vegan Lunch Box book:

It was suddenly imperative that I make some stuffed Autumn leaves myself so I headed to Cookies in Ballard, a store specializing in cookies cutters, sanding sugars and baking supplies. They had three different 5″ maple leaf cookie cutters for me to choose from, as well as the Fox Run set of 5. Gosh I love Cookies. That night I made Autumn Leaf cookies stuffed with a cinnamon sugar mixture:

And on Sunday I made the Martha Stewart Savory Autumn Leaf Pies, they were served next to a bowl of potato leek soup. It was the perfect meal after a day spent lost in a corn maze: