spiderrific cupcakes

This week has been filled with visions of pumpkins, spiders, skulls and All-Things-Halloween.  For his class party, The Son specifically requested spider cupcakes.  We scrolled many, many images on Google and found The Perfect Spider on M&M's website.

owl s'mores

The Daughter's request Halloween treat was this awesome owl. You should have heard her gasp of delight when she saw the image on my friend's blog.

Just a few items yield such charming creatures.

pumpkin chocolate chip muffins {bwd}

Fall and pumpkin go hand in hand. Once the leaves start changing colors, I'm itching to bake something with it. Today's Baking With Dorie assignment is perfect for the pumpkin state of mind I'm in.

almond brittle {sms}

Candy making is new to me.  Read: I've always been afraid of boiling sugar.  (I'm also afraid of power tools, but that's because I fear drilling a hole into my finger or sawing off a limb.)

These past few months, I'm proud to say, the candy thermometer and I have become acquainted.  It ain't so bad.  Caramels, pralines, toffee; bring it on!  This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays Baking Group pick was Peanut Brittle.  I'm glad JoVonn picked it, so that I could put the thermometer to further use. After reading about the trouble some had with Melissa Murphy's recipe, I decided to go rogue and change some of the measurements.  I checked out Hanaâ's recipe, as well as one at Allrecipes.  Visit JoVonn's post for the original recipe, and see the other yummy brittles that the bakers made.

marcella hazan's (super simple) tomato sauce

A tomato sauce with four ingredients.  You probably have all four in your house too.  I am not quite sure why I haven't tried this before, because I've read about this recipe several times this year on various blogs. Perhaps I thought it was too good to be true.  Impossibly easy and full of butter!  (As an aside, The 9-Year Old Bossy Literal Son was complaining to me that I should post only recipes with butter included in them, so I think he'll be happy with this one.)

For a basically no-prep tomato sauce, this is my go-to recipe now.  It does take 45 minutes to simmer, but that gives you oodles of time to tackle something on the never-ending to-do list.