Halloween is a big holiday for me. It’s not only my favorite, it’s just an all-around great holiday to decorate & bake for. I know I’ve mentioned that before. I’ve also mentioned before that I just love Martha Stewart’s specialty holiday magazines. Each year for Halloween & Christmas I’m like a crackhead feenin’ for her fix- I have to buy her Halloween magazine & Holiday magazine. Sure, her regular magazine is cool too but I’m all about the holidays. And of course the covers always pull me in when I’m on line at the supermarket anyway. “Ooh look, Martha’s dressed up as a moth-woman! It’s a must buy issue!” That and I’m pretty much a boring chick. Really. Yes, I have this “glamorous” blog that is world-renowned, this art-school slash fashion background, yes I’m the significant other of a police officer slash death metal bassist, yes I have a sidecut & nose ring & listen to some interesting music. But the highlight of my week last week was buying pumpkins on sale (that weren’t gross & motley because of Hurricane Irene) & getting spiffy new glasses. No, seriously. I got new glasses & I’m that psyched about it. As if I wasn’t already a nerd! You’d think my life would be a bit more exciting, but this is it. I get giggly over new spectacles & holiday craft magazines. So yes. I enjoy reading all of Queen Martha’s magazines & I’m that sucker who’ll buy one each freakin’ year season holiday..

This particular year, well since July anyway, has been a bit off for me; I’ve been dealing with a lot of shit & basically didn’t have a clue as to what I was going to do for any of the holidays. So I basically used Martha’s ideas. For Halloween, I should say, since that’s the only holiday that’s relevant so far. Yeah, it’s not the most imaginative, but really… is anything new? Everything has really been done before anyway. All we do is just recycle old ideas & implement them in slightly different ways, or “freshen” them up for the current social climate. At least that’s what I keep telling myself when I feel bad about not coming up with something amazing myself this year & I end up using an old idea or one of someone else’s.

But even though I felt guilty about not doing something ingenious & unique, had to do something holiday-appropriate. This is my favorite holiday, for goodness sakes! And let’s face it, being that I’m related (albeit by marriage) to the famous Van Tassel’s of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow fame, anything spooky & creepy & bizarre is an event I must participate in. Only if I were related to Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker or Washington Irving himself would it make me more of a Halloween-head. Seriously. Headless Horsemen, scarecrows, zombies, jack-o-lanterns, vampires, witches, black cats; bring it on. I’m not only ready for ’em, I welcome ’em!

So these cupcakes, regardless of how simple, are pretty awesome looking, I gotta say. Simple, but fun. Retro.

It sorta looks like they’re running away from the jack-o-lantern, doesn’t it?

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I just fell in love with the vintage cat clip-art/cupcake toppers she had in her magazine this year. It reminded me of some of the cardboard cut-outs my grandmother used to hang every Halloween, some of which were her mother’s. Aren’t they awesome? Both the cut-outs and the cupcake toppers. Oh- and that cake plate, which rocks my socks so hardcore because it came with a pink satin ribbon, but I can change the ribbon for every holiday and IT ALWAYS LOOKS AWESOME. Plus it gives me a really good reason to buy cute ribbon for every single holiday.

So yes, I made cupcakes & I had no idea what to do to decorate them. Turns out, the little cupcakes I made looked pretty close to exact to the ones Ms. Stewart had in her magazine; cupcakes in orange liners with these vintage-y cat faces. So that’s what I decided to do. On half of the cupcakes I put those cat face toppers, and on the other half, I went with marzipan pumpkins.

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Marzipan pumpkins that I made, myself. However I didn’t make the marzipan (I’m not insane)- I bought it. It was golden colored Dr. Oetker marzipan that I bought at an import market (where I buy my English chocolate & Irish tea). So no I didn’t totally make them. But I divided it, colored it, I rolled it up, sculpted it and painted it. Or one, anyway.

Yep, that little jack-o-lantern dude there. Here’s a better view, in natural light.

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You could obviously use fondant for the same effect, however I find that marzipan is tastier, so people don’t mind it as much. Sure, fondant looks pretty… but it tastes like an old diaper. Marzipan tastes like almonds & isn’t at all tough or rubbery, it has a really nice soft texture. It was also perfect because it was already a golden color, so I didn’t have to add much color to it to achieve a nice pumpkin color, and the green took to it really well too. It would be much easier to make faces if you get a black edible pen. I used black food coloring & a toothpick, which is why I stopped at one. I always have to make things harder on myself.

The cupcake recipe is a modified Martha recipe in & of itself, the frosting is a stabilized whipped cream one via Wilton that I felt was perfect with cupcakes that taste like pumpkin pie. Speaking of, the recipe supposedly makes 18 but I got closer to 24. The frosting recipe should frost that much, unless you pile it on super high.

PUMPKIN PIE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

Those vintage black ruffle candle holders were my grandma’s too… she had some awesome stuff

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And this is not the last time you’ll be seeing Martha-inspired content this season. Trust me when I say my entire Halloween tableau & menu this year is almost entirely from her. I’m not even kidding when I say I didn’t have an original thought in my head this season. Well, in the aspect of treats, anyway. As far as other things, i.e. decorating, I held my own pretty well, as usual. Here’s my annual Halloween “tree” & hanging lanterns:

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I don’t know if I mentioned it lately, but it’s really awesome having a blog/website. I can look up previous years’ holiday cupcakes, etc. with the click of a mouse, & each recipe & post is archived for me chronologically. Its like a virtual online cookbook or ‘idea book’ that I can access anytime I want to. It’s pretty effin’ spectacular. I hope it’s just as spectacular for you, too, to access all of that. There may be many blogs out there: lots of them are great, some may be nothing more than clones of others, but I hope either way you all come here because mine gives you a little something different. Or because I’m crazy. Whatever. I’ll take what I can get. You’re all amazing too!

Anyway like I mentioned before, with each post this year I’ll be posting a brief story on a Halloween tradition that has it’s origins in Celtic myths/legends. Here’s another for you…

There is an old Irish legend about an Irishman named Jack who liked to drink a little too much.

Long ago on a cold, lonely Halloween night, as Jack staggered home from another night of over indulging, the devil appeared to take his soul. But Jack was a cunning Irishman. He tricked the devil into climbing a nearby tree to pick him a lovely apple for his final meal. While the devil was picking his fruit Jack carved a Celtic cross on the tree trunk. The devil couldn’t cross such a sacred symbol and was trapped in the tree. Jack only let the Devil pass when he promised never again try to claim his soul. Well eventually Jack finally died from the drink. But poor Jack was denied entrance into heaven because of his drunken ways on earth. So Jack then tried to enter the gates of hell, but the devil, remembered his promise and denied Jack entry into hell. But the Devil was so impressed with his shrewdness he threw him a glowing hot coal to light his eternal wanderings. So Jack placed the red hot coal in a hollowed out turnip to form a make-shift “Lantern”.

You see there were no pumpkins in Ireland. Some legends say you can still see the fire of “Jack’s Lantern” as his spirit wanders the earth with nowhere to go. Years later all across Ireland people began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” or simply “Jack O’ Lantern.” So the next time you look down the dark road and see that glowing light in the distance, be careful. Because it just might be Jack, Jack of the Lantern!

– source The Irish Jewelry Company