Trick or Sweet: Fun-Size Candy Bar Studded Cheesecake Recipe for Serious Eats

What's so "fun" about Fun-Size candy bars, anyway? Those paltry portions taste like deprivation to me—unless we're talking about eating five or six, all at once. But I digress.

For a sweet treat that embraces the excessive sweetness of the Halloween spirit but also takes advantage of surplus candy (or the cheap prices of Halloween candy the day after), try your hand at this Fun-Size Candy Studded Cheesecake. A rich and creamy cheesecake gets a chocolatey upgrade from coarsely chopped candy in a variety of your choosing. Lucky enough to have extra Snickers bars? Go for it, or make it a mix; mine included a melange of Nestle favorites, including about 15 assorted mini Nestle Crunch, Baby Ruth, and Butterfinger bars. One thing's for sure: the size of this cake makes for mega-fun.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Bake a Cake In It: Cake Baked in a Pumpkin Recipe for Serious Eats

It's been proven time and time again that stuff is better when it's baked inside of a cake. For example: cupcake-stuffed cupcakes, truffle-stuffed cupcakes, the entire website Bake it in a Cake.

But what happens when you do the reverse, and bake a cake inside something unexpected? Like a pumpkin?

The original idea here was to make mini cakes in cored-out small pumpkins, but the baking was irregular; baking a batch of cake in one large pumpkin yielded a far more delicious (and good-looking) result.

The moisture of the pumpkin yields a cake that had a texture something like a baked pudding—very dense and flavorful. To keep things from getting too pumpkin-heavy I tried this recipe with carrot cake; the flavors and spices worked beautifully with the pumpkin scent and flavor. It's even better when generously frosted and served with ice cream.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Cake Byte: CakeSpy on TV in San Francisco!

Guess what? I was totally on TV talking about my favorite type of corn aside from unicorns: CANDY CORN! Yes, that's right: I was on KGO-TV's 7Live.

You can watch the video online here, if it isn't loading above.

But wait, there's more! I was amazed and delighted to find that Kevin Smith and Jay Mewes were also guests on the show--directly before my segment! Now, you probably already think this is awesome, but considering that they are from the same area of New Jersey as me, it was practically cause for a heart attack of happiness. 

But wait, there's even more! After the segment, I got to meet these two fellows, and found them to be extremely sweet, and delighted to accept my offering of Candy Corn Nanaimo Bars. That's right: Jay and Silent Bob ate my candy corn Nanaimo bars. Famous Nanaimo Bars! One of the producers took a picture, which I will share as soon as it's sent to me, OK?

Best day ever. Make the good times last--come to one of my book signings this weekend, at Teacake Bake Shop and Omnivore Books, respectively!

Baker's Dozen: A Batch of Sweet Links

Happy Halloween weekend, sweeties! Here are some sweet links for the week:

First off, a reminder: I will be in San Francisco this weekend! Come to one of my book signings / cake eating events.

Very sweet giveaway: Zester Daily is offering up a suite of sweet cookbooks!

Bakery I wanna visit: Good Day Sunshine in Canada!

Le Nom: "Grown Up Peanut Butter Cups" on Gilt Taste.

C'est bon: Tiffany Bonbon cookies!

Sweet tea: Adorable tea towels from Joy of Ex.

Get these in my belly: Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

English Breakfast? Yes, but not savory!

Fat man? No, Fattigman! In pumpkin, for fall.

Speaking of pumpkin...howsabout some pumpkin sesame seed brittle?

Join the sweetness: The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!

Got allergies, but not ready to give up on sweetness? Check out this one: The Divvies Bakery Cookbook: No Nuts. No Eggs. No Dairy. Just Delicious!  

Cheddar-crusted apple pie. Sweet, salty, buttery, delicious.

And don't forget: there's still time to make a zombie graveyard cake for Halloween!

CakeSpy Loves The Today Show!

 You know, I'm just saying. After my experience on TV in San Francisco, I totally think I'd look cute on the Today Show. Don't you think so, too?

Smear Campaign: Smearcase Recipe for Serious Eats

If you ask me, a baked good had better be great to get away with an exceedingly unappetizing name like Smearcase.

And happily, it is—this little-known Baltimore specialty, introduced to me by Rachel Rappaport of Coconut & Lime, is sort of like a thinner-crusted cousin to the pride of St. Louis known as Gooey Butter Cake. A dense, cakey crust encases a big ol' smear of gooey cream cheese-based custard filling; when sliced into squares, it's sort of like cheesecake condensed into a bar cookie form.

Note: While not strictly traditional, I added a handful of lightly roasted walnuts to the top of my Smearcase, with delicious results.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Tour de Sweet Boston: Eat Cake! in Newburyport, November 8

So, I really think you should come visit me in Boston when I pass through on my Tour de Sweet book tour.

On November 8, I will be making a sweet stop at Eat Cake! in Newburyport ( I'll also be stopping in downtown Boston on November 7, at SWEET). They will have books on hand for you to buy and me to sign and draw a cute little unicorn, cupcake or robot in for you.

But I don't want to be too bossy about it, so instead of saying "you'd better come, you!" I'll give you five sweet reasons why it would be a good idea for you to come. Totally your decision though.

1. Eat Cake! is adorable. They have exposed-brick walls and black and white checked floors. Classic!

2. The bakery has a very sweet story--sort of "If you bake it, they will come." Read it here.

3. On their menu is something that goes like this: "The Infamous Dipped Chocolate Fudge: cake dipped in Chocolate with Vanilla (or Oreo) buttercream, dipped in Chocolate again". I want that in my mouth.

4. They also have a "Today's Cupcake" feature on their site, where you can see what is available TODAY--with pictures. I love this.

5. I will be bringing some cute stuff to give away to lucky winners, including notecards, original art, and my famous cupcake-unicorn-robot socks.

This event will take place at Eat Cake!, 9 Prince Street, Newburyport, at 3pm. For directions and more, visit the Eat Cake! website.

Tour de Sweet Boston: Sweet, Downtown Boston, November 7

So, I really think you should come visit me in Boston when I pass through on my Tour de Sweet book tour.

On November 7, I will be stopping at SWEET, a wonderful place to get cupcakes (I'll also be stopping at Eat Cake! in nearby Newburyport on November 8).

But I don't want to be too bossy about it, so instead of saying "you'd better come, you!" I'll give you five sweet reasons why it would be a good idea for you to come. Totally your decision though.

1. Sweet is conveniently located in downtown Boston, so if you work in the city, it is the perfect after-work stop. And if you are coming in from another neighborhood, well, there's plenty of cool stuff around to do if you wanted to make a day of it.

2. Sweet makes very delicious cupcakes, and they now have Fall flavors available. What I am saying here is that not only can you hang out with me, but you can pick up a few cupcakes to take home and share (or not), too. 

3. I solemnly promise to draw a cupcake, unicorn, or robot in each sold copy of my book . And I promise to try really hard to spell all names correctly when signing books.

4. Did I mention that Sweet's cupcakes have been called "Boston's Best"?

5. Cake. CakeSpy. My book . The prospect of a unicorn drawing. Really, do you need more reasons?

Bonus: I'll be bringing some boxes of CakeSpy notecards to raffle off to lucky winners!

Event Details: Monday, November 7, Sweet Cupcakes, 11 School Street, Downtown Boston. 5-7 pm. Find more information about Sweet here. Find the Facebook invite here.

Creepy Cute: Zombie Graveyard Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Zombies don't eat cake—they eat people's brains. But this Halloween, here's a way to turn the tables: Zombie Graveyard Cake.

This is just about the tastiest graveyard you'll ever come across. Starting with a generous amount of grass green-tinted frosting, the cake is then lined with cookie crumbles to resemble the residual grave-escape dirt, dotted with cookie "graves", and decorated with zombie cutout cake picks (printable illustrations to cut out can be found here) to form a delightful dessert that is creepy and cute all at once.

For the full entry, visit Serious Eats!

Seeking Sweetness: Daily Snapshot, Birthday Cake Custard featuring Rainbows

CakeSpy Note: if you follow me on facebook or Twitter, you probably know I'm partial to adding bits of sweetness to my daily surroundings and sharing my sweet experiences. Here's where I post a daily feel-good photo, for no particular reason other than to showcase these sweet little nothings, in hopes that they'll make you smile.

Here is a short and true amusing anecdote for your viewing and listening pleasure--it is a real conversation I had today at Old School Frozen Custard.

Employee: Our flavor of the day is Birthday Cake Batter. Would you like to sample it?

Me: Actually I'd like a scoop in a cup, and can I get rainbow sprinkles?

Employee: It already has rainbow sprinkles in it.

Me: Well...then can I have more rainbow sprinkles?

The result? Well, you can see it for yourself. Taste the rainbow!