Pumpkin Carving

Have you started planning your costumes, parties and/or pumpkin carving? Heck, Halloween candy started showing up at stores the day after Labor Day, so what are you waiting for? Halloween is only a month away. No time to lose.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I've loved carving pumpkins ever since I was a wee little lass, saving my lunch money to buy the biggest pumpkin I can find. Now that I don't have to scrounge for lunch money, I often splurge on multiple pumpkins to carve each year (4 was the most as my fingers cried in agony the next day).

For many years, I relied on Pumpkin Masters' templates and tools, as well as making my own templates. I've collected most of their pattern booklets up to about 3 years ago when I found Zombie Pumpkins! I still think that Pumpkin Masters are good for starters, especially kids. Also, they rate the templates easy to hard. The pattern booklets can also be found in many chain stores and local pumpkin patches.

But if you are a pumpkin carving enthusiast, you'll really enjoy the Zombie Pumpkins! patterns all created by Ryan, the Patch Master himself (disclaimer: I have no affiliation to nor do I receive any incentive from Zombie Pumpkins!). You can download a few freebies to try. The new Skrull pattern looks awesome and I would probably rate that for not-so beginner to an intermediate carver (some detailed cuts involved). But if you want access to all of Ryan's creations, you can choose from a variety of memberships (info here). From all the patterns you get, I think the membership fee is a graveyard bargain!

Once you get the hang of carving beyond the triangle eyes and jagged teeth jack-o-lanterns, you find that your household knife won't give you some of the ease and precision cutting you'll need. I highly recommend purchasing some kind of carving tool set to make it faster and more enjoyable. I have a wood carving set that I purchased years ago but there are better sets now (like the one on Zombie Pumpkins!) more tailored for pumpkin carving. This year, I purchased the pumpkin gutter and can't wait to use it! Gutting the pumpkin, IMHO, is the most tedious and annoying part. So with the new gadget, and with some help from the Mister, I should be able to breeze through the annoying part quickly. Hey, it might even make gutting the pumpkins fun.

You can find some very valuable information on the Zombie Pumpkins! forum. You don't need to pay to read the forum posts but you will need register if you want to post. There are also other sites you will find if you google pumpkin carving. But most sites will charge you for downloading/printing patterns.

Here are some of the pumpkins we've carved in the past. Most of these were fairly easy. The ghost (Oogie Boogie 2) on the left in the last picture was the one I chose for the Mister to do last year as his first pumpkin. He enjoyed it (minus the gutting part) and will be carving another one this year! I have a few in mind but you'll just have to wait and see which ones.

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Carrot Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

I recently came across a carrot cupcake recipe on the William Sonoma site that didn't have the traditional ingredients in a typical carrot cake (no raisins, cinnamon, other spices, or nuts). Since I'm not a big fan of nuts in my baked goods (much to the Mister's chagrin), I thought I'd give the cupcakes a whirl. The recipe is very simple and comes together quickly. Although I didn't have any mascarpone on hand, I decided to make a vanilla cream cheese frosting since I have really good vanilla extract and a huge stash of wonderful Tahitian vanilla beans. What's a carrot cake without cream cheese frosting, right?

Like I said, this recipe comes together quickly. It took longer to wait for the cupcakes to cool than to make them. I followed the recipe with one minor adjustment. I only added 1 tablespoon of grated orange zest. Two tablespoons seemed quite a lot and I'm glad I adjusted it. The cupcakes were very moist and tender.

While the cupcakes are cooling, you can prepare the cream cheese frosting. This will make a bit more than what is needed for the cupcakes.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped


Directions:
Place butter and cream cheese in the bowl and beat with electric mixer until creamy. On low speed, slowly beat while adding vanilla extract, seeds from vanilla bean, and confectioners' sugar. Continue beating until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Extra frosting can be kept in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. (BTW, this frosting makes a nice cake filling, too.)

Spoon a large dollop on top of cooled cupcake and spread with a small offset spatula. And voila, yummy carrot cupcakes. I like the look of the vanilla bean seeds in the frosting.

If the frosting is getting too soft, put the cupcakes in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes to firm a bit. I put a few in the refrigerator overnight and had them the next morning with coffee. The cupcakes lost some of its tenderness. I recommend storing them in an airtight container but just note that the cream cheese filling will be on the softer side. Overall, these are nice (and quick) little treats for carrot cake lovers. But if you're more of a traditionalist, I'm sure your favorite carrot cake recipe will do just as well in cupcake size.

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend. Now go and eat well.

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Chicken Fingers - Revisited

Every now and then, I go back and reread some of the recipes I posted. I made chicken fingers again this past weekend and realized that somewhere along the line, I've started to lean towards deep frying the chicken fingers rather than pan frying. I'm still pan frying but I'm adding more oil that barely covers the fingers, almost deep frying. I found that this cooks the chicken wings quicker and more evenly.

I also discovered something interesting due to a brain fart and lack of timing. The chicken fingers were done before the fries were done, by 12 minutes! I was in a dilemma because I did not want soggy chicken fingers and since the fries were being baked, I couldn't tent foil the fingers in the oven. So I resorted to "refrying" (egad!) the fingers once the fries were done at the risk of them being too oily.

The oil temperature kept well in the Staub Dutch oven so it didn't take long to get the oil temperature back up to 350 degrees. But something in the back of my head (where all the useless information resides) told me to heat the oil a little higher for the second fry. Some Korean chicken wings place do this to get an extra crisp on the wings. So I let the temperature rise to around 365 degrees before test frying my first strip (better a soggy finger than a burnt finger, I guess). It only took about 30 seconds in the oil until the outside crisped up. So I proceeded to refry the rest of the chicken fingers. All in all, took only a few minutes to refry the whole batch.

To my surprise, the chicken fingers were not any oilier than the first fry and the crust stayed crunchy much longer. My guess is that the fingers had cooled down before going in the second time and were not in the oil long enough to soak up excess oil. Although I wouldn't go out of my way to do a second frying but it's nice to know that they can withstand a second "crisping."

Have a good hump day. Now go and eat well.

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