Making use of our halloween candy...

Ok. I'll confess. I buy loads of "snickers" bags of candy to give out on Halloween, with the hope that no one will knock on our door and I get to eat them all .
I know... Selfish. Junky even. I'm not an advocate of crap candy. If we are to eat sweets here, I rather organic lollipops for my kid and real chocolate. But there is something amazing, personally, about the high fructose corn syrup poison in those junky morsels that I indulge in once a year. I'm not going to die of regret ... Today . :)

Luckily, honeypie doesn't care too much for the non-chocolate, pure sugar junk either. So I thought ... Why not put our Halloween candy to good use by working on science and math with them.

First on our agenda was a science experiment to test for secret ingredients inside the candy. Oil, citric acid and dyes.
Here we are testing for "citric acid" by adding a bit of baking soda to the dissolved pez, nerds, and bottlecaps.





Melting the candy in warm water .





We check for bubbles.





Here we are feeling the waxy film on the water to test for oil and feeling the flexibility in the laffy taffy and starburst candy.





The waxy film that formed after the oil puddles cooled.





Here we are testing the M and M's. We see if there are food dyes on the paper towels after wetting the candy.





(on a side note... Scary!)





Next? On to some math.
Making a candy bar graph.
We got the most Hershey kisses and only one tootsie roll. Thank god!! Tootsie rolls stink. It's a poor excuse for chocolate . :)













A great fun and full of learning kind of day.


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Happy Halloween!

Of course we needed to be a unicorn this Halloween! :)
Mama had it easy this year making the costume. I found a fluffy vest with a hood and just embellished it with ears, mane, tail and a golden horn.
Super cute!














We made a couple more crafts and even got around to making a delicious carrot / red lentil dip with toasted ghostly corn tortillas!












Oh boy !




Hope you had a ghoulishly yummy Halloween !

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Soft pretzel pumpkins

There's something very evocative about the deliciousness of a soft salty pretzel, specially smothered with spicy mustard. It talks to me about 80's music concerts with cheap beer, cold winter nights in NYC, and that darn "take me out to the ball game" song.
So imagine my joy when I found what has got to be the world's easiest pretzel recipe ever!!
I'm going to share it with you, because you know you love a good pretzel and it might bring you back memories too, whether Duran Duran, Pat Benatar or the Yankees....

Our soft pretzels here are Halloween inspired.

Soft pretzels

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1.Sprinkle 1 package of yeast ( the little ones 1/4 oz) onto 3/4 of a cup of warm water. Add a tablespoon of sugar and stir. Let it stand for about 10 minutes. It will become foamy .
2.Put 2 cups of flour and 1 tsp of salt into a bowl. Add the yeast mixture.
3.Knead the dough until smooth.
4.Roll pieces of dough into ropes or what ever shape you want them to be.





5.Make fun shapes . (Here we are making a pumpkin)




6.Beat one egg with a fork and brush the tops of the pretzels with the egg. Sprinkle with corse salt.




7.Bake at 400* for about 10-15 minutes depending on the size of your pretzel. Or until golden brown.








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Paper doll ghosts

Here is a super easy project for little hands and perfect for any occasion. Paper dolls.
In October, pumpkin, bats and ghosts. November brings turkeys, cornucopias, or corn. In December, Christmas trees, Ginger bread men and wreaths ... The list goes on!!

The magic of paper doll making is this:
One: making tabs (hands that hold )
Two: a fan fold

To make some first,

Take an 8 1/2 sheet of paper and fold it in half.




Fold it in half again




And fold it in half again...




Open the paper. You should have 8 creases (8 rectangles ).




Refold back and forth. Like a zig zag ( a fan).




Flatten down and draw 2 tabs. One on each side. This is how your image will hold together.




Draw your image.
We chose a little ghost-y.




Cut all around the image .
BUT do not cut the tabs off.




And cut...




Tah dah!!! Paper doll ghosties!




We made tons of ghosts, pumpkins, bats, hearts, flowers and....




Even got around to including some paper doll unicorns !!




Have fun!!

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Pasta ghosts

Today's Halloween / science fun?

Pasta skeletons!




































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Cookie skeletons

We have been busy getting ready for Halloween and nothing says yummy halloween better than these chocolate skeleton friends!

If you'd like to make these I am including the recipe below.

Enjoy!












And....

A fairy and her unicorn (skeletons!!)




Here's the recipe!

Royal icing

1 lb confectioners sugar
5 tb meringue powder
1/2 cup water (mixed in, a little at a time).

Mix in a bowl with a whisk. If the mixture is too thin, add more confectionary sugar. If it is too thick, add a bit more water but a tsp at a time. You want the icing to be thick, that way it will not run all over your cookies.

Chocolate cookies

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tbs unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder.
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup (which is 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 confectioners sugar
1 large egg lightly beaten
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

~sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.
~mix butter and confectioners sugar at medium-high speed in a different bowl ( with a paddle attachment on your kitchen aid) until light and fluffy.
~mix in the egg and vanilla. Reduce speed. Gradually add the flour mixture until the dough sticks together .
~ refrigerate the dough for at least an hour .
~roll out the dough to 1/8" thick .
~cut out the cookies in the desired shapes. (I like to bake on parchment paper. Keeps the cookies from sticking to the trays.)
~bake at 350* for about 8 minutes depending on the thickness of the dough.
~If the dough softens too much , stick it back in the fridge and roll it out again.

We are trying to do a Halloween countdown with projects to do everyday ... So stay tuned !

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