BAKE: SPICED PUMPKIN CAKE BITES

As you may have read in my previous post, that was the first time I had ever carved a pumpkin on my own. This year seems to be my first for anything Halloween related, so why not try pumpkin for the first time, too?! I came up with a really easy recipe you can use for any of the pumpkin flesh you scraped out, creating delicious cakes! This was originally supposed to be biscuits, but honestly, I can't make biscuits to save my life. I don't know whats wrong with me, I follow recipes exactly and still come out with flat cakes, so I'm just going to go with it for this one and call them cake bites!

So, what will you need for these little mouthfuls of pumpkin deliciousness?

- Plain flour (300g)

- White sugar (300g)

- Margarine (125g)

- Salt (1/2 tsp)

- Bicarbinate of soda (1 tsp)

- Baking soda (1 tsp)

- Egg (1)

- Vanilla extract (1tsp)

- Mixed spice (3tsp)

- Pumpkin pulp (250g)

(TOP TIP: If you find yourself having too little/too much pumpkin pulp, divide the number by 250g. For example, if you had 220g pumpkin, then do 220/250 which is 0.88. Times the measurements of the other ingredients by that number, so the sugar and flour are both 300/0.88, so that would be 264g of them both!)

First, you need to cream together your sugar and butter, until you get a pale, sugary paste. This step doesn't take long at all!

Grab the pumpkin pulp, and throw it in a food processor. I hadn't cooked my pumpkin (and I was not aware that was something you could do), though after a bit of Googling, I found raw pumpkin is completely fine to eat, so that makes this recipe a lot easier and quicker!!

Now you need to add the wet ingredients. Crack in the egg, and add the pumpkin and vanilla extract. Whizz it all up and you're left with this strange looking wet mixture.

Now you add the dry ingredients! Throw in the bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt, plain flour, and mixed spice, and give it a good blend. And then that's it!

Scoop the mix into a baking tray, just putting 1-2 teaspoons on in a blob. You could try making these into cute cupcakes too, they'd just take a little longer to cook!

And here they are! I've sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top of mine, and I tried making a thin white icing to drizzle, on some of the others too!

Honestly, these are absolutely delicious and a great way to use up those icky pumpkin insides!

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween, and enjoy this scrumptious recipe!

- Sian

DIY: JACK SKELLINGTON PUMPKIN CARVING

I know what most of you are thinking, "Everyone knows how to carve a pumpkin, why is she writing this??" Well, this was the first time I ever carved a pumpkin on my own, and let me tell you, it was harder than I thought! I'll actually be following this blog post up with a delicious and easy recipe that you can use the pumpkin insides for, so keep a eye out for that next week!

Let's just begin, shall we? Of course, you're going to need the obvious- a pumpkin, a spoon, and a knife... and maybe a pen if, like me, you enjoy planning beforehand. If you want to be all fancy and grab yourself a carving kit, go ahead!



The first step is co carefully cut the lid off (don't throw it away, you'll need it later!) and scrape out all those insides. You want to get as much of them out as you can- the less insides there are, the easier it is to cut, and also the more pumpkin you have for the recipe!



If, like me, you're a bit clumsy and enjoy planning beforehand, this is where your pen comes in. Start to draw an outline onto your pumpkin. I looked up images on Google and kind of chose a few that looked good, then drew it as best I could on the pumpkin



This is where the scary stuff happens. Grab the knife and CAREFULLY cut out where you've marked. As you can see with mine, I didn't do it very neatly, however that didn't actually ruin the end pumpkin, so don't worry if it's a bit messy! Just make sure you keep your hands out the way of the blade.



I found the mouth to be the hardest part, so I did it in smaller sections, taking breaks. Make sure you get all the teeth and the sharp points of the corners of the mouth!



Now all you need to do is light a little tealight, place it in the pumpkin, and replace the lid. And there you have it! A beautiful Jack Skellington halloween pumpkin!

(Can we just take a second to appreciate this being my first proper Halloween so I am VERY excited and proud of my beautiful creation)

HAPPY CARVING!