Make Your Own Halloween Candy Bars

I've been meaning to give this a try since last Halloween when I read the original article, courtesy of Chow.com. They have recipes posted at the website for their own homemade versions of Peanut Butter cups (pictured to the left), Almond Joy, Twix, and Snickers chocolate bars. I love love love chocolate (who doesn't?!) and can only imagine that these homemade versions of famous chocolate bars taste even better than the original!

It gives four different difficulty ratings and it appears that the one that I'd like to try the most, the Peanut Butter Cup, is the easiest of them all! It even uses all natural, crunchy peanut butter in the recipe, which is the kind that I normally keep on hand. I need to pick up a "chocolate thermometer" and some special "milk chocolate couverture" - I don't have any experience with tempering chocolate, so if anyone has any tips for me, that would be wonderful! I'm going to go to a specialty kitchen shop tomorrow, so hopefully I can find a chocolate thermometer as well as some mini-muffin pans.

Here is a link directly to the Peanut Butter Cup recipe, so if anyone else decides to give this one a shot, let me know! I'm going to hopefully give it a try and post about the results!

Cupcakes of Westdale Village...a tasty treat!

Today I picked up a super tasty treat for Paul (my fiancé) and myself...some delicious cupcakes from Cupcakes of Westdale Village! If you live nearby Hamilton, Ontario, Canada - or ever find yourself in the area - I suggest treating yourself to these yummy handmade treats! From the ten different varieties that they had on sale, I decided on the following (from left to right, top to bottom in the first image): Peppermint Patty, Red Velvet, Vanilla Vanilla, Chocolate Chocolate, and two of the Peanut Butter Cup (I knew this would be a favorite and decided to get one for myself and one for Paul).

While these cupcakes don't come cheap ($13.00 / half dozen, or $2.50 per cupcake), I lucked into their "Toonie Tuesday" special today at $2.00 per cupcake. The cupcakes are definitely worth the price, as they are all baked with the finest ingredients in small batches in the shop. They're way better than any cake-mix or grocery store cupcake you will ever find, that's for sure!

It was my first time visiting the store and it was a delightful shop - very cute inside, and I love how all of the cupcakes were wonderfully displayed on the counter. There are even little cupcakes that you can buy for your dog, topped with a little dog biscuit on the top! They also have a large collection of little plastic cupcake toppers that you can purchase to personalize your cupcakes.

So far, we've devoured three of the cupcakes and they were delicious! The cake was light, fluffy, and full of flavor; the icing added a great sweetness but definitely wasn't sickingly sugary. I highly recommend supporting this local small business - check out Cupcakes if you get the chance!