Hallowe'en Cookies (and Cake Trial & Error)

The boy is still visiting, and he has decided to go hang out with our friends for Hallowe'en tonight. Me? I am babysitting the cutest little redheaded girl in all of Ottawa, and maybe the world! I'm not big on Hallowe'en, but I don't mind Hallowe'en baking. If I had my icing colours and all that stuff here I would have made sugar cookie zombies, mummies, vampires, and werewolves (this was my original plan) but I loaned them to my sister and won't get them back until tomorrow. So instead we get Hallowe'en Chip Cookies. They're chocolate chip, but with Reese's Pieces mixed in too! It's the best I could come up with, with limited supplies. once again I gave anothe recipe a try... not that it's much different from my usual chocolate chip recipe. They're all pretty similar!

Hallowe'en Chip Cookies

1 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup Reese's Pieces

Cream shortening and sugars, then add vanilla and egg. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt separately, then add to the creamed mixtured. Finally add the chocolate chips and Reese's Pieces. Spoon onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 8-10 minutes at 350F. Easy!

In other news, I made a cake lastnight for dessert... one I've been wanting to try from Smitten Kitchen for a while. It's her Best Birthday Cake, and since I am also on the mission for the perfect scratch cakes I figured I'd give this a try. I halved the recipe so I would only get one layer. The cake turned out wonderfully, it's moist and light but not unnaturally so, and it has a great flavour. I used margarine instead of butter, and I think in the future I would make a point of using butter as called for. I also made her chocolate sour cream icing, and it tasted great on its own too. The two together, however, was not up my alley. Tasted kind of like pancakes with chocolate chips... a favourite of mine, but not what I wanted the cake to taste like. The boy, on the other hand, thought it was really good. Next time I'll throw some buttercream on it, or some cream cheese icing, and leave the chocolate sour cream icing to another purpose! But I want to reiterate that the cake itself was AWESOME. I will definitely be making it again.

Anyway Happy Hallowe'en, to any of you who celebrate it, and to those that don't, Happy November Eve!