Unlike last week, the recipes this week are a little more tedious, but still easy. They require a little more than some candy and icing. Except for the skeleton gingerbread men, everything is made from a cake mix. This allows for quick preparation. You’re more than welcome to make these goodies from scratch, just remove the boxed/bagged cake mix and ingredients and substitute your own cake or cupcake ingredients.

For the Halloween cake, I used premixed cake mixes instead of dying white cake mixes. It wasn’t my original plan until I saw the Halloween display at the store and different colored cake mixes rocked my world. The same goes for the icing. Instead of dying the icing, I just bought purple and orange icing (bonus: they came with sprinkles). In any case, note that this cake can be changed to different holidays (like Christmas or Easter) by buying white cake mixes and dying them the colors of your event or holiday.

Halloween cake

Ingredients

1 bag orange cake mix

1 bag of purple cake mix

Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on bake mixes

Orange colored frosting

Purple colored frosting

Black food coloring

Directions

Heat oven to 350 F.

Mix up the orange and purple cake mixes separately, then divide the purple cake mix in half.

Spray a 12-cup Bundt pan with non-stick spray or wipe with butter and sprinkle with flour to prevent sticking.

In once purple icing bowl, put several drops of black food coloring to achieve desired color. Pour black cake mixture into the bottom of the pan. Follow with purple and then orange (or vice versa).

To be sure my cake didn’t spill over the sides, I set the kitchen timer to 39 minutes and check halfway. It turned out perfect!

Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn it out onto a plate to completely cool before adding icing.

Microwave each frosting tub for a few seconds on high until it’s smooth enough to drizzle over the cake. Drizzle orange and purple frosting over in any pattern.

Store loosely covered and unrefrigerated.

Skeleton gingerbread men

Ingredients

3 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon allspice

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon shortening, melted

2/3 cup light brown sugar

¾ cup molasses

1 egg

Directions

Sift flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves and allspice into a bowl.

In another bowl, mix butter, shortening, light brown sugar and molasses; beat in egg with a mixer. Beat the flour mixture into the wet mixture in two additions. Divide the dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and roll to ½-inch thickness. Chill 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 350 F. On a floured surface, roll out each piece of dough to ¼-inch thickness, dusting with flour, if needed. Cut into 3- to5-inch gingerbread men and arrange 1 inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Press skeleton cookie press (I got mine at Walmart for $1.58 in the Halloween section.) on to cut out gingerbread men to make impression. Brush off excess flour and chill 15 minutes.

Bake until the cookies are golden around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool, then decorate if desired.

Brain cupcakes

Ingredients

1 box vanilla cake mix

Eggs, vegetable oil and water called for in baking mixes

1 can vanilla icing

Red food coloring

Directions

Heat oven to 350 F. Mix cake batter together according to directions. Pour mixture into cupcake liners or in a sprayed muffin pan. Bake cupcakes 15-18 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then remove to cool on rack or plate.

Pour icing into a bowl and add one drop of red food coloring before stirring. Mix to a light pink color. Only add one drop at a time to ensure you achieve the right shade of pink (it only took me one drop of red).

Spread about ½ tablespoon of icing on top of cupcake. Spread around for a smooth surface. Do this to all cupcake and put remaining pink icing in a piping bag. With a circle tip, start at the middle-top of the cupcake and make a line through the center of the cake. On both sides of the cupcake, take your icing bag and make a zig-zag motion from the middle icing line to the edge of the cake.

Set aside for a few minutes to allow icing to set.