Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

Little bowl of Pumpkin Custard. I had a bit of leftover pumpkin pie filling sitting in the refrigerator for two days. I decided to try making it into a Pumpkin Custard , both to avoid it going to waste and to keep trying out the new oven. I put it into a small round Pyrex container and baked it at 375 for 20 minutes. It was done by then, and likely overcooked since it immediately developed a crack in the middle. Next time, bake it at 350 and see what happens.  That'll be next year. An idea for an easy Thanksgiving or Fall dessert would be a pumpkin custard baked in individual ramekins or on a large bowl for each person to scoop out their own portion, topped with whipped cream and served with cookies.  Maybe we'll try this next year!

I was delighted to finally be hosting Thanksgiving at our house, instead of having to schlepp to Grandpa's house.  My Sis and BIL were visiting, and I heard he was hoping for a traditional Pumpkin Pie .  I made the pie dough on the Tuesday, using this recipe  from Sally's Baking for an all-butter crust. I had to make two crusts, actually, because I made a mistake while mentally halving the recipe and used 1/4 cup more flour than I needed.  I quickly saw that crust wasn't ever going to come together!  I made a second crust and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next day, on Wednesday, the crew drove over to a nearby farm to pick up a locally-raised turkey breast for our meal.  There were only 5 of us, so we knew we didn't want to deal with a whole turkey. Meanwhile, I made the pie.  Rolling out the crust and making the filling were the easy parts.  But the baking! First of all, I'm just getting to know the oven in this new induction stove....

Vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream  and royal icing cobwebs We're all adults in our house now that Bubby's all grown up, but that doesn't mean we love Halloween any less.  We love trick or treating in a nearby town that is very festive, but after several years of doing this it was beginning to feel very repetitive.  So, we decided to have a Halloween party. We invited all of Bubby's friends and ended up with a group of about 12.  A nice fit for our house.  We decorated as best we could, although the windy forecast made it impossible to put up the inflatables and use the fire pit we bought for the occasion. But the inside of the house looked very festive.  Bubby and I were all decked out in witch and warlock costumes.  The party was a lot of fun! We served chips and pretzels, lemonade and other juices, pasta with meatballs and salad. There was a jack o' lantern full of fun-size chocolate bars like Snickers, Twix, etc. And there were Halloween cooki...

  Gluten-free "mummy" cupcakes One of Bubby's friends who RSVP'd that he was attending the Halloween party follows a gluten-free diet.  I wanted to make some treats he could enjoy and decided to make cupcakes. I didn't want to invest in gluten free flour, because I won't use it often. So I decided to get a cake mix.  Earlier this year I had success with the Nature's Promise gluten free cake mix, but it doesn't seem to be available in stores right now.  Not sure if it's been discontinued or if it's out of stock. And the other mixes I saw were so expensive!  The budget for the party had already been exceeded, so I turned to good old Betty Crocker.  A name you (think you) can trust.   Was I ever wrong!  Though the cupcakes baked up OK, the taste was absolutely awful. This even though I tried to elevate the taste by adding buttermilk instead of water.  But they were dense and dry, only fit to be thrown away.  Unfortunately I didn't real...