Trick or Treat & Sugary Sweet

8 days til Halloween! I'm reminded every day of the number of remaining days til Halloween by my 6 year-old. He is a Halloween fanatic, which I am sure many of your kids are too. The ironic thing with my kid though is that since he has lived in France since he was 10 months old, he has never celebrated a traditional Halloween with Trick-or-Treating. Maybe it's the dress up, maybe it's the pumpkin, maybe it's the idea of ghouls and goblins lurking about, but this kid just loves Halloween (like me!) and so every year, I try to find things to do that capture the same spirit as the classic Halloweens I spent as a child.



Since he is still too young for one of my favorite spooky Halloween movies (just thinking about the theme song gives me the creeps! Checking over my shoulder now to make sure there is no one standing there....seriously!), we try to keep in the spirit by carving a jack-o-lantern that glows in our window (sadly we're usually the only people on the block to have one) and getting together with other anglophones to celebrate on the big day. This year, we are thinking of attending a party being planned at the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. A far cry from the Halloweens of my youth!



I've been baking up lots of Halloween cupcakes this week and having a great time doing it. Some of my favorites accompany this post.



On a slightly different topic, the October challenge of Iron Cupcake Earth: Music wraps up tomorrow so I need to tell you about the final cupcake I baked up for the occasion....

Before I had kids, I used to wake up at 6AM maybe 4-5 times per week to hit the gym for a few hours before heading to the office. Oh I still get up often at 6AM but it’s usually to bake or ‘cause one of the kids is up early. And I still do a lot of running … to my son’s school, to my kitchen, to my daughter’s singing classes, to playdates, to jujitsu, to the parc, etc….unfortunately not very much of it is for pleasure as it used to be but more like frantic, out-of-breath, perpetually late and missing a doudou, water bottle, blankie, insert other valued item here type of physical activity. I do try to run once a week as exercise for my sanity, and to give me the illusion of staying in shape, but let’s face it, a once a week run doesn’t do much to combat the endless sampling of cupcakes and buttercream I do on a daily basis!



Turn on my iPod and you’ll find my running playlist reads like a Who’s Who of bands from the ‘80’s with a little Missy Eliott, Justin Timberlake and Eminem thrown in. I got Run-D.M.C. and Loverboy, Cheap Trick and Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tom Petty, And I got the Def Leppard. I can’t help but love these guys. Pour Some Sugar on Me has been one of my favorite running tunes for many years now. There is something about the edgey opening guitar riff, the pounding of the drums and Joe Elliot's suggestive crooning that gets me going - it's an epic rock anthem. And the song title makes such a logical choice for this month’s IC:E Music challenge, gosh darnit! So here is my final entry – a vanilla cream soda cupcake, stuffed with a peach champagne cream and topped with a brown sugar buttercream. I'm sure you recognize the decorations on top:

C'mon, take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up
Pour some sugar on me
Ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me



Voting for Iron Cupcake will begin no later than Friday, October 30th at 8 p.m. at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER and will be open through Thursday, November 5 at 12 noon. So make sure you get on over there and vote for me! Here's a reminder of what I am competing for.



Happy Haunting to all of you out there. Lastly, don't forget to get in on the action in the final days as I count down to my 1 year blogiversary. Visit my Facebook page and join as a fan; I'll selecting 3 winners at random on Halloween to win 1 dozen cupcakes each. Winners to be announced on November 1.