Happy Halloween Dear Reader! When I first saw Jenny from Picky Palate’s Mummy Dogs I think I actually giggled and clapped. Yes I do those sorts of embarrassing things. And yes this is why Mr NQN gets embarrassed by my behaviour and asks me not to sing while walking through the shops. Suddenly I’ll be singing and then notice that my hand is no longer clasped in his and he is walking several metres behind hiding his face in his shoulder. I shudder to think that if I become a parent, I’ll be that eccentric lady that embarrasses their children-who am I kidding? I know I will be. However looking at how much I love Halloween, if I don’t raise a little ghoul, then I will be surprised.

What I loved about these Mummy Hot Dogs was how relatively easy they were and how preparing them on the day took less than half an hour. I’m not including the time it makes to make the bread or pizza dough as of course that needs to be done ahead and all the better for a party I say. The less I have to do on the day the better for me.

Jenny’s recipe called for Pillsbury Dough which we don’t get here in Australia so I figured I would make a bread dough. But I was running out of time as I had events galore and things to do on Halloween and I recalled stashing some pizza dough in the freezer for emergency times such as these. I found that one dough round wrapped 4 of these frankfurters in an adequate way with a little left over dough. You could also try this with puff pastry too if you cannot get the pre-made bread dough which comes already rolled out which helps a lot but I found that with puff pastry, there were more joins as the pastry itself comes in a square and it is therefore shorter than the length that you can roll dough.

I know mummies’ wrappings are supposed to be more white than yellowed but I blame the distractedness on the fact that I didn’t hear the timer when it went off. If you watch it like a hawk then you can ensure that yours turn out only mildly yellowed like Jenny’s. Kids, both young and old love the novelty of these and just make sure that you have some tomato sauce…ermm I mean blood ready for them to dip these Mummy Hot Dogs in.

And look out for Monday’s story with a wrap up of my Halloween party! I promise that “normal” transmission will resume after then

So tell me Dear Reader, what embarrassing habits do you have?

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“You’re Not Quite Normal are you?” my friend says staring at my practice brain for Halloween. I’m not offended and agree. I’m a Halloween girl, there’s no doubt about it and I’ve been planning this year’s Halloween party since let’s think… November 1st last year? The one item I really wanted to make was a bloody brain jelly but alas I didn’t have the time to buy a mold last year. This year I was determined to do it though and nothing was going to stop me. I was more determined than Tracy Flick from Election or Rachel Berry from Glee. If I rode a fitness bike, I would have had a picture of the brain jelly in front of me while working out furiously to music. Thankfully no such props were necessary and a purchase of the brain jelly mold was easy.

At first I wanted to make a glowing green jelly brain a la Dr Frankenstein’s lab but when I saw the effect of a creamy vanilla pannacotta jelly with faux blood clots on top of it I was sold on the latter. And like all of my Halloween food, it’s entirely edible and it tastes just like a regular vanilla pannacotta in a thicker jellied red sauce. The idea of slicing this up did frighten my friend and remind her of that surreal scene in Hannibal involving Ray Liotta but once she tried a slice of it, any protests were quelled with a murmur “Mmm brains” she said. I think I turned my friend into a zombie…

Donna Hay cupcakes $3.50 each

And I was excited to see two of my favourite stores also share an interest in the Halloween theme. Donna Hay’s General store in Woollahra has a window devoted to Halloween where you can order cupcakes and buy boxes of pumpkin, witch and ghost cookies, lollies and trick or treat bags.

The Halloween window!

Ghost, witch and pumpkin cookies

I bought some lollies for my Halloween party and was offered a Gift With Purchase of a box of Donna’s Cookie mix (I chose oatmeal and cranberry) which comes with a purchase of $80 or over (while stocks last for this coming week).

Then Buppa from Buppa’s Bakehouse in Newtown emailed to let me know that she had some Halloween food including Pumpkin Pie (of course!), a rat treat, a mummy cupcake, a ghost cake and a skull cookie. I knew what I had to do with this box of Buppa’s goodness. Share it with my mum who is addicted to them.

The Mummy Cupcake was a moist chocolate cupcake topped with buttercream and jaffas for eyes. Ingenious!

The rather realistic rat was made of smooth, rich ganache like chocolate coated in finely ground cookie crumbs.

The Pumpkin Pie had a lightly spiced pumpkin and a slightly wet crust probably due to the pumpkin.

The Ghost cupcake was a light and fluffy vanilla cupcake taken out of it’s sleeve and coated with a rich buttercream.

The Skull cookie was my favourite with a crumbly chocolate cookie filled with cream cheese icing.

Happy upcoming Halloween fellow creepies!

So tell me Dear Reader, are you celebrating Halloween this year? And if so, what is your costume?

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Please, please don’t roll your eyes. I know cheesecake isn’t the most exciting or novel dessert, certainly not as exciting as a macaron or a Zumbo creation but allow me to plead my case. The first time I tried this was at my recent Halloween party where my guest Queen Viv, a fantastic cook, brought this cheesecake over. We were stuffed to the gills with all sorts of “horrific” foods yet someone piped up that there was a cheesecake in the kitchen and that they wanted to try a slice (ok that was me). And a few of us were cut small slender slices of this pale orange hued cheesecake and sank our teeth (or in the case of some, fangs) into this delicate and airily light cheesecake.

Soon after hearing our moans and requests for seconds, suddenly everyone else was getting a slice and enjoying it thoroughly. There was a hint of cinnamon and a touch of lemon to the pumpkin flavoured cheesecake which was not too pumpkiny but just right.

It is from Nigella’s Feast, a book that I have fallen in love with all over again after disliking it for years as the first 7 items I tried from there were either average or a disaster. The only issue with this recipe is that it makes a little too much filling for the crust even with my modification (her original recipe calls for 750g of cream cheese!). Nigella says to push the crumbs onto the base of a 19cms diameter springform tin but I found that that way, the base was incredibly thick so I pushed the crumbs up to the side. You could either do the same as I did and then bake the remaining into cupcakes (I had an extra packet of biscuits so I just made more of the base) or bake it in a ramekin for a pot of pudding. Or you could bake it in a 23cms diameter springform and just press the crumbs into the base and that way you won’t have any leftover. It all depends what you want and have in the cupboard really.

I cooked mine for the requisite time but found that was too long, I think after 1 hour 20 minutes check it to see whether it’s done and you will get the correctly hued cheesecake shade. Don’t let the water bath turn you off but if you just can’t deal with it, you don’t need to. Queen Viv’s plate was too large to fit into a baking tray so she baked it as it was and it was perfectly light. And with the cheesecake itself, this light, dreamy confection, do I rest my case Your Honour.

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