It was a Mash, it was a Monster Mash (well, a monster Coffee Hour after Church)

These eyeball candies are made out of a round mini-pretzel, a white chocolate wafer, and a chocolate chip. We added some red sugar sprinkles for blood-shottedness. And wa-la, as the French say, bloodshot eyes! I called them Eyes of the Cyclops. Which I was completely unable to say without wanting to sing to the tune of Eye of the Tiger, that cheezball theme to one of the Rocky movies.

Eye of the Cyclops, it's the thrill of one eye,

Rising up to the challenge of our rivals,

I'm the one eyed survivor....

Making 50 of these little beauties took about 8 minutes, and that includes the oven time (to melt the white chocolate on the pretzels) and wouldn't you know, they got the most raves!

 Mummy cupcakes were another easy and cute thing. Bake cupcakes. Frost with white frosting. Add two Skittles for eyes. Cut out strips of white fondant and mummify! Ta da!

Here is the table as we were getting set up. See that cake with the white frosting? It is Jim's never fail pumpkin cake and it is absolutely delicious. He adds a little maple syrup to the frosting for that extra something. Pumpkin and maple, it's so damn season appropriate it practically screams autumn!

Are these the funniest? The webs are sugar cookies frosted with white, then black icing. The spiders (which actually looked a lot like cicadas) are dried apricots with licorice string legs and eyes made out of black and white jimmies. They were hilarious and got so many compliments. They were more for looks than eating...because to be honest, apricot and licorice is not a great taste sensation.

Sugar cookies. Jim used his secret ingredients for delicate, crispy cookies with a light citrusy flavor. First, baker's ammonia, then fiori di sicilia. Then, to roll those suckers out, you have to have cold dough and roll them thin, thin, thin. People wonder why they don't get great results with pre-made Pillsbury dough. Cupcakes, if you want delicious sugar cookies you have to be willing to work at it.

Jim and Andy did most of the work this time. I showed up late and helped with the eyeballs and all the cupcakes. We didn't get pictures, but the dirt cupcakes (white cupcakes frosted with chocolate icing, dusted with ground chocolate cookies, and decorated with a gummy worm) were also hits. The kids loved them, kids like anything gross.

I think our next theme coffee hour will be in Advent. I think we ought to pick one feature ingredient and see what we can do with it...maybe cranberry. Or pecans? Either of those could work. Hmm.