Pecan Pie Muffins/Cupcakes

These were so yummy...I am so glad that my office loves to have potlucks because it gives me the opportunity to try out new things!! Not that my family does not like to try new things but sometimes we have a hard time eating all of the sweets that I want to bake!! These mini pecan pies were perfect for taking to potlucks or your holiday party- one suggestion though is to double the recipe and make them in full size muffin pans instead of the mini's...to me the full sized ones were just the right size- I found myself eating a few to many of the mini ones!!

What you need:
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a medium bow and mix well.
Spray muffin tin with Pam with flour cooking spray -trust me you want the kind with flour in it.
Fill each 3/4 of the way full.
Bake in preheated oven for approx 18 minutes.

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Fall Table Decoration

I really really want to start decorating for Christmas. Yet I am worried that I will be tired of looking at my decorations before Christmas arrives so I am holding out and going to continue our family tradition of decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving.

So in the meantime I did a little fall decorating. We do not have alot of places in our house yet to put little things up so my entry way table will have to do for now. I have a feeling I will be decorating and working on this house for a very very long time!!!

Anyway if you remember a couple posts ago for my winter wonderland theme I used these containers to put ornaments and snowy candles in them. They are so versatile that today I was able to change the look by adding fall garland and popcorn kernals!! If you are looking for an inexpensive transition piece for November- this is it! I paid only $1.49 for the popcorn kernals!!

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Chocolate Dipped Smores

I needed to come up with something quick and yummy to take to my office Halloween Potluck. I had seen a recipe for chocolate dipped smores and thought since we had most of the ingredients already around that I would give these a try.

I love to make things with my kids- it's no problem to have my oldest help me but I often struggle to find things my 5 year old can do with me beyond just dumping the ingredients in the bowl- so I get real excited to try even the simplest of recipes if she can help. This was one of those so round up your kiddos so you all can create smores tonight!

What you will need:
Graham Crackers
Mini Marshmallows
Chocolate chips (also used to make the dip)
sprinkles for the top


Preheat oven to 350
To start break apart your graham crackers and place on aluminum foil lined pan
Place mini marshmallows on one side and chocolate chips on the other
Place in oven for just a few minutes until chocolate chips are soft and marshmallows have started to poof up - if you use big marshmallows they will poof alot faster!
Once melted to your liking, place one side with marshmallows and one side with chocolate chips together and squish them together! (This is a great time to taste your smore to make sure they are perfect before you make the next batch!)

I put mine in the freezer for a few minutes to help set the chocolate while I melted the chocolate chips for the dip. Place some chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl (I used a drinking glass or mug) for about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir the chocolate until smooth- and dip your smore in until you have covered the bottom half of them. Sprinkle with any toppings you would like
I have also seen some variations with different chips or melted toppings. To turn these into smore pops just use half of a graham cracker, larger marshmallows & chips. When you take out of the oven insert a lolipop stick on top of the marshmallow before you put the chocolate side on top. Allow some extra time in the freezer to set the stick and chocolate.

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Candy Corn Marshmallow Treats

Yep you guessed it - another pinterest inspired treat to make with my kids...Are you starting to figure out why I named this blog "A Sprinkle of Inspiration!"

This time I wanted to make something with my daughter and send it to school for her kindergarten class as a treat for after fall break.

These were so fun to make- and the chocolate melts were so yummy I had a hard time keeping myself from eating the leftover melted chocolate!!

What you will need:
Wilton Candy Melts in Orange and Yellow
Marshmallows
Lolipop Sticks
Lolipop Bags for wrapping later on

I could not find yellow so I purchased white candy melts and added candy coloring- not food coloring. Insert a lolipop stick into each marshmallow then stand upright on wax paper tray. After melting chocolate in microwave for about 20 seconds or until melted dip marshmallows about 2/3 of the way in the orange chocolate. Then put finished marshmallows in freezer for a few minutes to let chocolate harden. Once harden and dried- dip marshmallow into yellow chocolate 1/3 of the way up and set on wax paper tray- again you can put them in the freezer to speed up the hardening process.

Ours were not perfect- to be honest nothing is ever perfect or straight if I am involved in it. My daughter helped me dip and it was more fun for us to do these together then to make sure that the dipping was perfectly lined up! Afterwards we placed them in the lolipop treat bags and tied an orange or yellow ribbon around the bottom to seal it.

I have seen these where they are then stuck into a small hay bale but I never got around to the store to buy one- so ours were just neatly placed in a bag for school.

That afternoon when my daughter got home- we all could not wait to check her bag and see if there were any extras leftover- and to our excitement there were a few still left in her bag! Yippee!!

You can find the original inspiration Here

Happy Baking!
~Elizabeth

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Halloween Treats - that didn't make the party!

Another pinterest inspired treat- meringue ghosts! Original recipe can be found Here

We gathered all the ingredients and started out to make our ghosts- we did these about 3 days before the party as the recipe said they last a couple of days afterwards! And so we started beating the egg whites.
After beating for about 30 minutes we decided they HAD to be stiff enough..right..I mean it did not say it would take an hour to beat..so we decided to start the process of piping the ghosts.

I did not have a real pastry bag so I just used a zip loc bag and then cut off the corner. The recipe said these would make around 36- but we made 60+ so obviously I did not make big enough ghosts- this became very apparent half way thru when they started to look more like blobs then ghosts! I attempted to put 2 mini choc chips on them and they barely fit...so what did we do...we created eyeballs or cyclops instead! Yep nothing like having a creative family to come up with something out of this mess! We cooked them for the 1 1/2 hours then waited....the recipe said they would melt in your mouth- nope no melting at our house! So I left my 2 pans of cyclops on the stovetop and walked away disappointed- only to catch my husband later sneaking some and commenting about how good they were!

Needless to say these did not make it on the party table and we are classifying it as an epic fail! But hey sometimes that happens- and just to keep this blog real I thought I would show you that sometimes the recipes don't always turn out! I should comment later as I was telling a coworker about how they turned out she asked me had it been a rainy day- which it had so maybe that's what the problem was!!

~Elizabeth

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Teen Halloween Party Food

Here is part 2 of my son's Halloween Party. Part 1 was all about Mummy food but here are some of the other items we made for his party! Let me just say 2 things!
1. Over buy decorations as it does not go nearly as far as you think it will.
2. Teenage girls will not eat much if there are teenage boys around!! Although they did eat up the pretzel rods and mummy smokies!!
I saw this great drink dispenser at a friend's birthday party and rushed out to Sam's to get one for myself and even better it was on clearance. It was perfect for our Halloween Party as it had a center part made for the ice however I put mini skulls in there- then as the kids drank the blood (I mean hawaiian punch) the skulls were revealed. Just as a side note this dispenser holds 2 jugs of Hawaiian punch!

Bones Breadsticks- I found the recipe
Here

These again were so much easier then I thought they would be- you just take the breadsticks and roll them until they are thin enough to tie the ends up. I used spaghetti sauce instead of dip to give it more of a bones and blood look. One thing to note was I made these in advance and then reheated them right before the party- they were ok but no where near as good as the ones we tried the night before right out of the oven. So if you can I would suggest having these be the last things you cook before your party.

Cheese Fingers served on a Silver Platter!
Again super easy to make but a bit time consuming. Take String Cheese and cut in half- then cut a sliver off the end to make the fingernail- the original version I saw had almonds as the fingernails but my son came up with Pepperoni to use instead- so we had red fingernail polish!! Cut the pepperoni to fit the sliver and push lightly into cheese- you could add a small amount of cream cheese here if you need to- we didn't. The take the back of your knife and make 3 knuckle marks in the middle of the cheese- you could also do these towards the other end if you wanted more knuckles on your fingers.

Witches Hats:
These are great for your younger children to help make. They are simply fudge stripe cookies turned upside down with a hershey kiss attached to the top with orange wilton icing!

Pretzel Rods:
We had leftover chocolate melts from a treat I had made for my daughter's kindergarten class so we used those to make chocolate covered pretzel rods. I will tell you we used the Kroger Pretzel Rods because they appeared to have the fewest broken in the bag- and none of them broke during the process. Just dip in your favorite melted chocolate, sprinkle with holiday sprinkles and lay on wax paper and put in freezer to dry for at least 20 minutes. I then added them to a bowl of candy corn so they would stand up and be easy to grab!

Happy Partying!
~Elizabeth

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Teen Halloween Party: Mummy Food

So I know it is November but since I just started this blog I thought I could play catch up for a bit. My 14 year old son wanted to have a halloween party this year and since we now have the space to entertain I said Ok!

I immediately went to my favorite addiction on the web, Pinterest to start searching for cool teen food options! I am going to break this up into a few posts but today we will start with the Mummy themed food!


First up: Mummy smokies! This was super easy to make and a cute spin on pigs in a blanket! Take a can of crescent rolls and pull apart the crescents- then cut each crescent into strips- wrap the strips around your smokie to form the mummy cloth. Cook as directed on the back of the crescent can. Then use mustard or ketchup for the eyes. (Considering my son frowned when I started adding the mustard as eyes I left some blank for those who do not like mustard on their hot dogs!)

Mummy Spinach Dip & Crackers

I found this next recipe Here

It was alot easier then I thought it was going to be- however I should have let my crust rise longer then the suggested time.

The original recipe called for the eyes to be made out of olives but since this was a teen friendly party and I did not have any olives around- I used wilton's candy eyes! It was a little creepy with it staring back at me!



Next I cut & scooped the inside part out and added my favorite spinach dip & wheat thins for dipping. Yummy Mummy!Happy Halloween!

~Elizabeth

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