Halloween Cupcakes and a Bonus

 Cupcakes made from a box mix...revolutionary I know.  That Betty chick knows what she's doing, what can I say.  But mostly I made the cupcakes as a vehicle for the cute liners and I wanted to try what I saw touted as "The Best Frosting I Ever Had" on Tasty Kitchen. 

As I started making it I realized..."Hey, I'm making a roux!"  Fortunately it turns out tasting way more like frosting than gravy.

Best ever?  I'm not sure about that. It's definitely got a light fluffy thing going on.  Light and fluffy has it's place from time to time, but for me nothing beats a good old buttercream. 

Here's the recipe from Tasty Kitchen if you're interested.

 5 Tablespoons Flour
1 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Butter
1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

 In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

Now the bonus...

I'm not sure if I've told you lately, but I really love you guys.  And I also really love notepads.  I just can't get enough of 'em.  Do I ever remember to use them when I need paper?  Not a lot, but I love them just the same.  So I was in The Dollar Tree some high dollar paper product store the other day admiring their selection of notepads.  And somehow my love for you and my love for notepads just made sense.  It all came together like some cosmic truth.  Okay, I'm stopping now.   So here's the loot....

Just a few little notepads, pens, some napkins that might  be nice to line your bread basket, and some holiday themed cooking magazines.  I'll leave this giveaway open through midnight this Friday night (the 22nd).  US only please, since I'm cheap.  To let me know you're interested just leave the codeword "zombie" somewhere in your comment.