Haunted Halloween Treats

Saturday night John and I went to a Halloween bash.... yes! An excuse to make cute Halloween cupcakes and other vegan munchies. And, since I have now become addicted to scrapbooking (working on one for my wedding and the other will be a few pages for every month of our first year of marriage....I know, dorky), I even made cute little Halloween-themed signs. I had been so excited about my idea to use those little spider rings you got as a kid for cupcake decorations. I call them my Creepy Crawler Cupcakes.

Recipe for the chocolate cupcake and vegan buttercream frosting (dyed orange) from VCTOTW. And, I discovered the secret for making cupcakes disappear at parties ... make them mini! I think full size cupcakes are too much of a commitment for parties, people want bite-sized items. So I just shortened the baking time to about 14 minutes. And what better way to display my mini-cupcakes than in my new mini-cupcake tower! These were gone before the end of the evening.
I was also in the mood for hummus, and lots of it, hence my Tricky Trio of Hummus. Clockwise from the bottom right: sesame peanut hummus (from Everyday Dish DVD), sun-dried tomato and caper hummus (modified from Everyday Dish DVD), and regular hummus (from Vive Le Vegan). I love Dreena's hummus recipes, and I love how quick and easy it is to make them! For dippers, we had pita chips, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, and rice crackers.
And finally I made another favorite appetizer of mine, Spooky Stuffed Shrooms from VWAV. I substituted panko for regular breadcrumbs, I just love the crunchiness. Party goers popped these like candy, I should have doubled the recipe! But I did save some of the stuffing for our dinner last night, just put it in portobellos instead. I think I even got a conditional invite to another party from someone I barely knew, as long as I brought some of these!
I love baking with a theme! I think I will need to do some more Halloween-themed baking before Wednesday. Of course, you are all probably wondering if we went in costume. Well, yes, sort of. Neither John nor I get very excited about dressing up, so we went for something that wouldn't involve any effort, and something we thought was appropriate for us. So we went as an office couple "caught in the act". You know.... my shirt on inside out, his tie loosened, our hair disheveled, lipstick smeared on both of our faces. It was subtle but cute, especially since we met in the office! It was the best costume scare we dared to bare.