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Last weekend a friend gave me a book of Halloween recipes. I quickly picked out this dessert for a family dinner. The kids loved it. To the chagrin of my sister-in-law, they chose my dessert over the leftover birthday cupcakes she brought. Sorry! But who can resist Cool Whip and Halloween sprinkles?
This is the book I received in case you're looking for more Halloween recipes. I made only slight changes to their directions.
Halloween Dessert:
Orange Jello Dream
Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups of crushed Oreo cookies (I used the majority of a bag)
1/2 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine or butter, melted
8 oz. cream cheese, cubed and softened
1 tub Cool Whip
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 large (8 serving size) package orange Jello
1/2 cup cold water
ice cubes
Halloween sprinkles or candy
Set aside 1/4 cup crushed Oreos. Mix remaining 2-1/4 cups crushed Oreos, 1/4 cup sugar, and melted margarine with fork. Press firmly into bottom of 9x13 glass pan. I used a buttered spatula to help press the cookie mixture down. Place pan in refrigerator.
Beat softened cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar until smooth. With a wire whisk, blend in half of the Cool Whip. Spread evenly over cookie crust. Return to refrigerator.
Stir boiling water and orange gelatin mix until completely dissolved.
Fill a large measuring cup with 1/2 cup cold water. Then add ice until you have about 1-1/2 cups total combined water and ice. Add to gelatin mixture and stir until slightly thickened. If any ice remains, remove it from the mixture. Spoon gelatin over cream cheese layer.
Refrigerate three hours or until firm. Spread remaining Cool Whip over Jell-o.
Sprinkle
with remaining crushed Oreos and candy. The original recipe used candy
corn and candy pumpkins. Then they decorated oval-shaped cookies to look
like tombstones. I decided simply to use Halloween sprinkles with
little pumpkins.
The last of the pumpkin recipes for this year! This recipe comes from Libby’s, too. One of my nephews described the taste as being like “a super awesome carrot cake.” True enough—it wasn’t overly pumpkin-y, and the cream cheese filling does evoke a carrot cake taste.
This was my first attempt at doing any kind of “roll cake,” but I think it turned our fairly well. I had a few problems with the cake sticking at times, but at least the cake didn’t have any major cracks in it. Since I’m used to regular cakes, it was weird to work with a cake that was so thin!
Pumpkin Cake Roll
Cake Ingredients:
¾ cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly roll pan. Line the pan with wax paper and then grease and flour the paper.
Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar. I recommend not using a terry cloth towel that might leave fuzzies on your cake later. I also recommend being very liberal with your powdered sugar.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt in a small bowl. Beat eggs and sugar in a larger mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan. It will be a very thin layer. Sprinkle with nuts, if desired. (I used only ½ cup of walnuts, even though the recipe suggested a full cup.)
Bake for 13-15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. You might want to sprinkle with more powdered sugar as you roll the cake so that it doesn’t stick to either side of the kitchen towel. Cool on wire rack while you make the filling.
Ingredients for filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake; removed towel. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake, leaving an inch or so on the sides (this will give the filling a place to ooze when you reroll it). Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.
Note: Many people had posted online about how long they let the cake cool before filling it. I guess if you let it cool completely, it may crack when you try to roll it. I let the cake cool about twenty minutes. It was still quite warm when I went to fill it, but at least it rolled pretty nicely.
Happy Halloween!
I looked at many pumpkin cookie recipes online before settling on this one. I found many of them had comments by “reviewers” who tinkered with the recipe this way and that until my head was spinning about which way was best. All I wanted was a simple recipe for a great pumpkin cookie.
This one came straight from the Libby pumpkin people on the verybestbaking.com website. I didn’t mess with it at all, and I think the cookies turned out great.
Iced Pumpkin Cookies
Ingredients for cookies:
2 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheets.
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat sugar and softened butter in large mixer bowl until blended. Then add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
Gradually add in the flour mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Drop by rounded tablespoon (or my favorite—small cookie scoop) onto greased baking sheets.
Bake for 15-16 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for two minutes before removing to wire racks.
Ingredients for glaze:
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine ingredients for glaze in a small bowl. Then drizzle over cookies. I snipped the end of a decorating bag to make the drizzling a little easier. I also put waxed paper under the cooling rack to catch any glaze that dripped.
Yields: about 3 dozen cookies
One of my friends says that pumpkin is only to be served during the fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving)--NOT at Christmas time! :) To honor her request, I will be bringing you three pumpkin recipes in a row.
This week it's Pumpkin Loaf, a really moist bread that makes your house smell great. In the next two weeks, I'll have pumpkin cookies and a pumpkin cake roll. So don't worry when you see this recipe uses only half a can of pumpkin. Save the rest for the cookies or the cake roll. :)
Ingredients:
1 cup of canned pumpkin (this is a little more than half a 15-oz. can)
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce (I used the kind already flavored with cinnamon)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees for dark-coated pans). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla, and both kinds of sugar.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until blended. Pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 50 minutes. Loaf is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
I almost made these for Cattapalooza, but the chocolate cupcakes won out. :) This recipe was adapted from a full cake recipe. The frosting was the best part. With some dark chocolate decorations, these cupcakes could be really fun for Halloween.
Orange Dream Cupcakes
Cake Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
1 (3 ounce) package vanilla instant pudding
¾ cup orange juice
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons orange zest
Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the cake. Beat on medium speed for two minutes. Scoop into muffin pan. Bake for 16-20 for full-size cupcakes. Bake for 10-13 minutes for mini cupcakes.
Icing Ingredients:
1 cup cold milk
1 small package vanilla instant pudding
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
2 cups Cool Whip
Whisk milk, pudding, and orange zest for two minutes. Fold in the Cool Whip.
