Friday, October 31, 2008

BOO!!


Obachan's Halloween Cookies 2008

Anyone worried about me not posting much lately? You thought that I lost interest in cooking and/or baking? Oh, don't you ever worry about that.

As I wrote before, for Halloween of 2008, I was determined to make cut-out cookies using cute Halloween cookie cutters. And I wanted two colors -- pumpkin yellow and chocolate. So I made the pumpkin cookie dough using the same recipe as last year and rolled it out and cut it out into these pumpkins and ghosts. But unfortunately, these flat ones did not taste as good as the ball-like ones; They were bland, and the texture was not very impressive (at least to me) when they were thin. And the taste of these chocolate cookies was a bit disappointing, too. So I decided not to bring these cut-out cookies to Halloween party at the language school I work for.

Then I made the same pumpkin cookies as I made last year.


These turned out fine, but I didn't bring them to the party, either.

Instead, I made and brought these...


Mini-pumpkin muffins

... mini-pumpkin muffins to the Halloween party. Oh I loved them so much. Again, the recipe is from a Japanese recipe site, and it was one of those light-tasting, not-too-sweet muffin recipes that Japanese people love, so I couldn't help giving it a twist or two; I added some almond powder, cinnamon and a small amount of vegetable whipping cream. The muffins turned out great with this lovely bright orangish-yellow color !

I'm not quite sure if those who came to the party really loved my muffins, because those Japanese people (I mean, moms who came with the kids) could force themselves to eat something they don't like just to be polite to the school staff (me). Anyway, anyhow, my muffins were all gone at the end of the party and I would never find out if it was politeness or real fondness. Well, at least no one was brought to the hospital after eating them, and that is enough for me. ;)


There was nothing really special about my Halloween 2008... I didn't even go to the late-night costume party which I attended almost every year until 2006. But looking at these cookie photos makes me feel happy and warm inside, so I guess it was worth making them. :)


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20 comments:

K and S said...

happy halloween! these cookies look delicious.

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Such pretty cookies! Happy belated Halloween!

Cheers,

rosa

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Stumbled upon your blog and captivated by the beautiful food....:) Looking at your picture always tempt me to search for yummy food in my home country Singapore.

Marie said...

Aww how cute! I love the cheery look of the cookies. :)

Anonymous said...

Wow! These look amazingly delicious. And the lighting is so beautiful. :D

Ara

Anonymous said...

Happy Halloween!
I tried making the cookies for my Japanese class! I added cinnamon, brown sugar and cloves for flavor. And I roasted the kabocha seeds. It went well with the japanese transfer students! They said it was very "Kawaii." ^__^

They look very pretty, and I like the texture alot, (I love eating Kabocha) but the texture being dense and lacking the usual butter and egg of regular cookies made the texture a little too different for my American classmates.

I'm definitely going to make them again for myself, thank you for helping me with the recipe Obachan!

Anonymous said...

Kawai~!
I'm sure nobody ate the muffins just for being polite!! Looks really delicious!(*¬*)
Ah! Happy belated Halloween!
n___n

J P Hays said...

The mini-pumpkin muffins look delicious, and I really want to try making them, but I have a slight problem.

Looking at the recipe, I notice it requires something called "BP". Judging by the recipe itself (if, of course I translated it correctly), and the fact that it calls for so little, I am guessing it stands for Baking Powder. Am I right? or is it something else?

Hungry Hamster said...

they are absolutely adorable!!

Anonymous said...

They're so cute! I really like the presentation.

LilyAnette said...

Everything is nice!

Anonymous said...

Obachan, they sure are a lot of fun!! I'm sure that they taste great!!

As for the guests' opinion, don't worry too much. I have faith in everything you make. =)

Anonymous said...

Aaaaahh!!! They look so delicious and cute! I want to make these!

^_^ Maybe I can for Thanksgiving. I wonder if my family would like them...?

Victoria said...

I came across your blog today when I was searching for a recipe and I think I'm destined to be a regular. I can't believe the things you've made from a rural Japanese super! I wish I had found your blog a few years ago when I lived in rural yamaguchi! Keep up the delicious (and beautiful) cooking!

Victoria said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
obachan said...

Phew! 'twas a long and crazy week! Now finally it's my day off today and I can respond to you guys. :D

K & S
Thank you. Hope you enjoyed Halloween, too.

Rosa
Thanks. I loved the photo of your jack-o-lantern ;) 

Tricia
Hi. I bet you have lots of yummies in Singapore. It's one of the countries that I want to visit someday in the near future.

Marie
Thanks. Actually I meant to make them look scary, but the chocolate was so hard to handle and I had to give up on the scary faces that I had in mind...

Ara
The lighting turned out like this purely by accident, honestly. But I loved it so much that I didn't hesitate to pick this one as the top photo among the more than thirty shots I had taken. :D

Ami
Wow! I'm so happy to hear that you tried out this recipe and had a success! Yeah, I can imagine how your American classmates reacted.
It must be different. I guess you could modify the recipe to make these kabocha cookies closer to American cookies, but that way you'd probably have to give up on this cute kabocha shape.

Kiria
Thank you. Hope you had loads of Halloween fun!

Sirpaul484
Yep, BP is baking powder. At least, I thought so and used baking powder, and my muffins turned out fine, so I think you're safe. :D

Hungry Hamster
Thank you! ;)

Ari-chan
Hey, thanks for your email, too. I'm happy that you dropped by and saw what I was up to, because I haven't written to you for a while.

Lily anette
Thanks.

Anonymous commenter
Oh, I appreciate your encouraging comment so much. Theoretically, I should be successful as long as I stick with a popular, much-approved recipe. But usually I can't help adding my own twists, though I know that it would make me nervous.

Tindy
Well, like Ami wrote, some people might find the texture very different, so you might want to be careful... ;)

Victoria
Welcome to my humble kitchen! ;) So you lived in yamaguchi. I have a friend there and she always tells me how beautiful and laid back there. BTW, you know how super markets in rural towns are... There are lots of things (ingredients) I can't find around here and I buy more and more things online these days.

Yawle Pop said...

Very cute cookies and muffins!

obachan said...

Thank you, yawle pop. :)

lierre.empire said...

nice cookies u have.... =D

obachan said...

Thanks! :)