Basic Cake Decorating Ingredients

• 1 Box Duncan Hines Cake Mix
• 1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
• 4 eggs
• ¼ cup sugar
• ⅓ cup oil
• ¼ cup water

Directions
1. Mix all ingredients well with mixer (about 6 minutes)
2. Pour equal amounts into 4 cake pans.
3. Bake at 325° for 20-25 minutes
4. Test for denseness.
5. Place on cooling racks.
6. Cool thoroughly.
7. Place wax paper between each cake layer.
8. Wrap all layers in foil. Make sure to seal tightly.

Icing Recipe
To be doubled.

• 1 cup Crisco
• 2 boxes 4X confectioner's sugar
• ½ cup water
• ½ tsp. clear vanilla flavoring
• ½ tsp butter flavoring
• ½ tsp almond flavoring

Directions
1. Mix well several minutes with mixer.
2. Store in air tight container until ready to use.
3. To color, add a few drops of coloring with a toothpick and mix well.

This is the basic recipe we used for the cake at the Halloween party in '06. Instead of using 4 round pans, I used two large rectangular ones, which meant an extra ten or fifteen minutes of baking. Once they were cool, I cleared out a hollow about an inch deep in the bottom cake and lined it with the grey icing. The hollow was filled with a can of cherry pie filling (sugar free, actually, made with Splenda. This is because any MORE sugar and we'd have all been in a diabetic COMA). Then we just iced the thing with a solid thick layer of icing, no particular decoration needed. This stuff decorates beautifully.

As a secondary recommendation, use the round pans. Decorate the cake with the grey icing, and then use black cake icing (you can get it on the baking aisle this time of year) or black sanding sugar (which you can probably get if you live in larger areas) to make furry stripes across it. Redhots for eyes and eight black licorice whips create a nifty Spider-Cake!

Ingredients
From Gifts of Good Taste, A LeisureArts book

• 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 2 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 30-ounce can pumpkin pie filling mix
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger.

Mix until well blended and serve with gingersnaps.

• 3 cups all-purpose baking mix
• 1 lb ground pork sausage
• 1 7-oz jar jalapeños
• 1 8-oz block Muenster cheese, shredded
• 1 7-oz jar pimiento-stuffed Spanish olives

Directions
1. Puree jalapeños.
2. Combine baking mix, pork sausage, jalapeños and cheese in a large bowl until well-blended.
3. Shape sausage mixter into 1 ¼" balls and place on lightly greased baking sheets. Press 1 pimiento-stuffed Spanish olive deeply into center of each ball. Bake at 400° for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned.

Note: Southern Living suggested using Jimmy Dean Hot Pork Sausage. However, I had a roommate whose mom worked packing sausage when she was a teenager, and she said never, ever, ever to buy the hot varieties of sausage. She also said not to ask why if we ever wanted to eat sausage again without being sick. I didn't ask, but I figure the jalapeños are a much better idea than the hot sausage ~_^

Ingredients

• 1 gallon cranapple juice
• 4 cups vodka
• 2 clean-washed latex gloves
• water and red food coloring or additional cranapple juice

Directions
Fill latex gloves gently with juice or red-dyed water. Do not fill to the brim. Leave enough space to tie them at the end so that they can be clothespinned fingers-down in the freezer. Leave a little extra space so that they don't burst once they're frozen solid. You'll want to do this a couple of days in advance so that they have plenty of time to solidify. Keep the juice and vodka chilled in the fridge and mix the night of the party, and add a frozen hand as late as possible. Keep one (or two or three, depending how many you think you'll need) in reserve for adding later.