baking
Halloween brings out the crafter in us all.
Somehow October flew by me at unprecedented speeds, and because of this I didn’t have a lot of time to hype myself up for it. The pressure of trying to put together a costume and something to bring to the work bakesale probably helped me with my creativity. With no time to languish in creative-thinking hell, I set straight to it.
Firstly, my Halloween costume:
Rabbid & Manny Calavera
That is me as a Rabbid (from Rayman Raving Rabbids fame), and my boyfriend as Manny Calavera from Grim Fandango. I wore this to work but did not win any costume prizes. However, I got some wonderful responses while out on the street and was in more than a few strangers photos! I’d love to see them, but have no way of finding them. If you were out near kensington in Toronto and took a pic of/with me I’d love to see it!
This is what I used to make the costume:
- Posterboard
- Felt
- Acrylic Paint
- Styrofoam balls
- leggings/leg warmers
- and old shirt
- papier mache (over a balloon)
- a lot of moxie (and tape)
Basically I created a large tube to sit on my shoulders out of the posterboard, cut out an area for the face and taped it up. Then I stuck an inflated balloon into the top and papier mache’d over it so the dome would be joined to the tube. I used sharpies and paint on the eyes, and the same for the mouth/face area. It’s a bit hard to see but I did even have a plunger! Bwaaah!
The other craft item I made was the Pumpkin Cake:
Pumpkin-o-lantern Cake
It was made using 2 betty crocker cake mixes (French Vanilla for the Pumpkin, Chocolate for the dirt patch), home made cream cheese frosting + a can of store bought chocolate frosting, oreo cookie crumbs and fondant.
Using a sphere cake pan, we carved out the shape of a pumpkin, covered it with fondant and used the end of a knife to score the lines. We added the stem and the vine and put it on the the base, which was covered in oreo cookie crumbs for the ‘dirt’ effect. It was my first time covering a cake and fondant and I think it worked so well because pumpkins are lumpy by nature.
I’ve decided that I need to craft something once a month. Since there are no major holidays in November, I’m not sure where my inspiration will come from but hopefully I’ll find it.
Happy Halloween!
Pac-Man Sugar Cookies!
Earlier this week with the help of my good friend K, I created these Pac-Man sugar cookies:
Picture taken by Shaun Hatton
I got the idea from the great blog Snack or Die. The same place where I got the idea/instructions for my rabbid cookies.
These took longer than I would have liked but I learned a lot. We had watered down the royal icing to flood the cookies, but we had frozen them afterwards. When they came out of the freezer they started to melt and we had to let them air dry again to get that nice hard coating. So freezing = bad idea.
One of the best things about baking, other than the fun, and eating it afterwards is giving the baked goods away. Everyone loves receiving a treat and it’s nice to see smiles on people’s faces. I gave a bunch of these guys to Shaun Hatton over at Toronto Thumbs, and he made a little post about it! So, what better time than now to direct you to the wonderful Toronto based game blog he is a part of! Check it out!
Now I’m off to think of my next video game related cookie project. I’ll keep you updated 
What is an Iggle Piggle?
I’m not entirely sure, but this is a picture of him:
Iggle Piggle
I made a fondant version of him for the cake place:
Iggle Piggle in Fondant
I think it looks decent, but it was hard to capture his odd bean shaped head properly.
Fondant Iggle Piggle
It was fun 
I didn’t cover the cake in Fondant, I’m going to have to learn how to do that properly!
Halloween 2008!
I haven’t written in a while and that is because of the amount of prepparation Hallowen required. It was well worth it!
My work takes Halloween so seriously… more so than any other place I know of. We had a costume contest, a pumpkin carve-off, a bake sale and a candy cart! It was hard to focus.
Here’s a pic of my costume in it’s full glory:
This is how you dance in space
And a picture of the graveyard cake I baked for the bakesale:
Most delicious graveyard I've ever eaten
aaaaand the Pumpkin we carved for the Pumpkin Carve-off at work:
No mercy for gourds in Pumpkin Hell
My pumpkin-carving team was my co-worker Jess, our boss Libby and Pau, the Tech manager dude. It was great! We had 40 minutes to do this. Libby brought her dremmel tool and the little gourds. We carved up the little ones and each little gourd had a tea light in it. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but I know ours was technically the best as far as carving went.
I handed out Candy at Jess’ house and the highlight was seeing a kid dressed up as “Indiana Bones”. We went to the supermarket in Kensington and had a good time too, despite some douchery.
Something about halloween + drinking + skanks = douchery. It’s inevietable but we didn’t let it get us donw!
I had so much fun! Now that it’s all over, I’ve taken down the halloween edition of anitabot – but don’t worry there will be another.
See the rest of my Halloween pictures here!
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