Halloween Bird Feed: Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Spiced Pumpkin Buttercream

These cupcakes are perfect Halloween treat for adults - and kids, if you must. Besides being the right colors, the overall flavor is deliciously warm and very fall. I'm going to take a risk and share my absolute *favorite* go-to chocolate cupcake recipe, the ingredients of which might surprise you just a little (no eggs, no butter)! In the past, I have also added mini chocolate chips to the batter with lots of approvals. 


The recipe makes about 32 minis or 15 regular cupcakes, depending on your pans or size of cups, and I suggest making a double batch in order to use up all of the frosting (unless you find yourself eating it along the way for breakfast, like me).

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking soda (1/2 tsp if at altitude)
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp distilled white vinegar


Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Fill liners 3/4 full (trust me, you'll get the nice dome) and bake for 14 minutes for minis or 24 minutes for regular size. Cool on racks.

Spiced Pumpkin Buttercream
modified from Loves to Eat


2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup pumpkin puree, or more to taste
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 lbs powdered sugar, or more to taste


Cream together butter, pumpkin and spices until combined. Slowly add powdered sugar until you reach a desired consistency and sweetness. I prefer this frosting to be on the less-sweet side to let the pumpkin shine through. Less sugar will also help the frosting retain the pumpkin color.


Happy Halloween! Let all goblins, ghosts and ghouls enjoy a tasty night. 

The Road to You... and a Song

I'm reposting this because I've read it three times this week alone and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to print it out and carry it around with me. The song is my pick - I've also been playing it all week. Guess they go together in my mind!

From kind over matter:


The Road to You

By Jo Anna Rothman

The journey of you may be a long one. It winds and switches back on itself, leaving you unsure of how far along you actually are. It is one that holds the perils of abandoned feelings and lost moments of expression. Dips, plateaus and mountains to climb. Yet, you walk because it is the opportunity to come home to your Self. You are propelled by the calling of love and pleasure and dreams come true. You are inspired by the great joy you feel as you imagine getting closer and closer to the truth.

This road is a returning to the essence you once knew so clearly...so dearly. It is something that you experienced cosmically. Intimately. Yet it may feel as if you have lost the connection to the wild creator that you are most certainly designed to be. There is a hollowness in your movements and a longing for life to regain that magic glint it held for you some time ago. So you search and the path appears. You intend, open your heart space and move forward with an otherworldly courage, previously only known to mystics, children and certain poetic heroines of days gone by. The aurora borealis of connection and meaning lights the way. One foot in front of the other. Off you go.

You question yourself. The Self. The whole wild world...universe included. You stop seeking what no longer matters. You dive deep into the finding of who lies beneath the myth of skin and personality. On the way, you rediscover what it is you want in this glorious expression of the soul otherwise known as life. There are moments when you think you are lost and curse embarking without a map and compass. And moments where you know that you are living on, in and with purpose like never before.

The exhaustion sets in. You get tired of trying. Once again, the end turns out to be a mirage out in the never ending distance. It feels as if surrender is the only option. You have walked in hopes of reparation long enough to know that the cracks are simply too plentiful. And fixing them all now seems like a penance for a crime you did not commit. You lay down the hopes and come present.

What becomes abundantly and suddenly clear is that completion happens in a breath. A choice. An opening of your eyes. There is a knowing that you can never truly leave who you are. You have become a disciple to the loving...following the curve of its energy to ride into the ever lasting ever after. It comes not from a space of brokenness, as any notion of that was a simple misunderstanding. What once appeared as cracks are merely the places where the light of all that is streams through. It has always been a journey of recognition rather than one of seeking that which seemed lost.

From a new place of being, you make a choice. You walk the road because the movement is what brings you home to you. You walk because path holds the most love. The most joy. The greatest experience of you that could ever be...which was always and forever the point. You are home. In your heart. Without matter or reason. And you continue on the road.

*Original* Bird Feed: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins by Pie Bird

The perfect autumn Sunday treat... 
that you can pawn off on coworkers on Monday.


Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 24 full-size muffins


1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder (or 1 tsp for high altitude)
1/2 tsp baking soda (or 1/4 for high altitude)
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin *NOT FILLING
1-1/2 cups quick oats (can also be used)
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 


Beat together butter and sugar until well-blended. Add in eggs and mix well. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, powder, soda and salt. Add half of the dry mix to the butter/sugar/egg combo and stir. Add half of the pumpkin and stir. Repeat until all dry mix and pumpkin is combined. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.


I use unlined paper souffle cups for muffins and cupcakes (freestanding) so if you're using tins be sure to grease them or use paper liners. I filled mine with a regular size ice cream scoop and they were perfect. Otherwise fill about 3/4 full. Bake for 22-26 minutes or until browned. 

Bird Feed: Maple Shortbread Alfajores for Thanksgiving

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

In your honour, I whipped up possibly my 2nd favourite cookie EVER (after ginger molasses, of course). Wanting to use some of the maple syrup my family sent down from Ontario, I found inspiration in the traditional alfajor cookie - what about maple and dulce de leche doesn't sound incredible?! That's right - maple shortbread alfajor cookies sandwiched with creamy milk caramel and topped with maple sugar. Ooooooh Canada.

As more time passes, the more I miss the Great North. Luckily, I've been working with Parks Canada on a media project and get a little Canuck-love once a week via conference call. It doesn't nearly suffice, to say the least. In the meantime, we've come up with a Tim Hortons action plan and I keep baking things with maple in them. 

I found this recipe online - although I can only speak to how awesome the cookies are since I stumbled upon a jar of Dulce de Leche a couple of weeks ago and didn't try making it from scratch. 

Maple Shortbread Alfajor Cookies

from SouthAmericanFood.About.com

1 cup of butter, softened

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 egg yolk

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup corn starch

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp maple sugar

1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter with brown sugar and maple syrup. Add the flour, corn starch, salt, egg yolk, and vanilla. Mix until smooth (use your hands if easier). 

Divide the dough into 2 halves. Roll out the first half on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters and re-roll to cut out more cookies. My batch made a total of 30 cookie sandwiches (60 cutouts). 

On one half of the cutouts, brush the tops with the beaten egg and sprinkle a little maple sugar. Leave the other half of the cutouts plain. These will be the bottom of the alfajor. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are light brown. Mine took 9 minutes. Cool for a few minutes and then place on cooling racks. 

Spread the plain cookies with dulce de leche and then top with the maple sugar-topped cookie. Done! These are perfect for the holidays - or just because you keep a secret stash of pure Canadian maple syrup in the back of your pantry... like me. 

Cookies for my co-workers!