Something Wicked This Way Comes

When I was little, Halloween was my favourite holiday. I still love it, even just for the costumes. We had quite a festive Halloween weekend this year, which I enjoyed profusely. From start to finish, we celebrated for the entire weekend. On Friday my housemates and I went on a really cute trip, complete with hayrides, to a farm that has a huge (and difficult) cornmaze. It was at night, so obviously ten times more fun. Afterwards there was a bonfire, marshmallow roasting and hot apple crumble, which was all needed at this point as we nearly froze that night. On the Saturday we spent hours preparing our costumes: we were four counting sheep and Little Bo Peep. How cute is that? The best part was that I got to wear my costume twice! Once to the party on Saturday, and again on Sunday as three of us participated in Trick-or-Eat. Rather than asking for candy at people's doors, we asked for food donations. But oh, how wonderful it was to go trick-or-treating again, I felt so young! And of course, some people gave us candy as well as the food.. hehe. And if that didn't make me feel like a kid, we also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and Disney's A Halloween Treat. Yep, I'm a 7-year-old and I love it.

Now this wouldn't be a REAL post if I didn't tell you about the food we had this weekend. We made candy apples, apple cyder, and for breakfast on Halloween we made pumpkin pancakes! This was my first time making pumpkin pancakes, and I found a really good recipe (posted below) that turned out really well. The pancakes were thick with a really nice cakey texture. We ended our lovely weekend with a screening of Hocus Pocus, enjoying our apple cyder and candy apples. Mmmm I love Halloween :)

Pumpkin Pancakes (from Sweet Pea's Kitchen)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves
1 cup milk
6 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of ground cloves.
In a separate bowl, stir together milk, pumpkin puree, melted butter, and egg; fold mixture into dry ingredients.
Melt some butter in a skillet over medium heat; pour in 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Cook pancakes about 3 minutes per side; serve with butter and syrup.