Over the past few days, there's been a veil of mist shrouding my house, the graveyard near it and everything else my eyes can spy through the panes. This morning it officially transformed itself into a fog, and the town into something like an eerie scene from Silent Hill along with it. That, of course, can only mean one thing... Pyramid Head is coming for me my favourite time of year is here and Halloween is fast approaching too! The time of spooks, scares, devils, the dead, wicked little fiends and..trick or treating.
Naturally, as the name of the act implies, it's only nice to give the threatening, sweet-addicted hordes some form of sugary treats, for banging on your door at night, in their most beautiful guises of the year. Of course, you could give them regular Halloween candy, which I'm sure they would love, but alternatively you could provide them with something not entirely consisting of sugar.
That, my undead friends, is where the object of this post comes in. You may remember that just over a week ago I posted about The Fabulous Bakin' Boys
Spooky Flapjack Fingers, from last Halloween. Well, as it happens, they have come out with a new range of Halloween goodies this year - Spooky Cupcakes - and they've been kind enough to send us two boxes of them to review. (Yes, we got them for free, but I assure you, if we don't like them we'll say so!)
The cupcakes come in two types - Blackcurrant 'N Apple and Choc 'N Blood Orange - both of which are suitable for vegetarians. I think perhaps the Blackcurrant 'N Apple would have been better if it'd had a more corny, Halloween name too, but it's not really important.
"Consisting of two layers, a chocolate or apple flavoured sponge with a fruity blackcurrant or blood orange toppin', the spooky treats contain only natural colours and flavours and are baked in a nut-free bakery."
The packaging is very creepy-cute, with vampire bats, spooky castles, gravestones, witches, crazy cats and spiders on them, and I do appreciate it when it seems as though a company has actually put some effort into box designs, especially during Halloween. The back of the packaging mainly explains the Halloween contest that The Fabulous Bakin' Boys are running this month, which we'll get to later. The back also provides various contact links and manufacturer locations, whilst all the nutritional information is given on the side panels.
The cakes themselves are not as interesting-looking as the packaging and, once removed from the wrappers, are rather like other generic cupcakes. Even just adding a small decoration or spiderweb pattern to the top of each one would have been enough to give them a spooky look. This doesn't really matter if you're giving them out to trick or treaters, but if you want them as unwrapped treats on a party table, you might want to add something to them first. However, the icing colours are considerably brighter that most store-bought cakes, which does give them a somewhat cutesy, Halloween feel.
The Apple 'N Blackcurrant frosting is very creamy and fruity, which I liked a lot. I couldn't taste much of the apple flavour in the cake, but it was still a good fusion of tastes. I don't like choc-orange flavoured food, so I only tried one little piece of a Choc 'N Blood Orange cake. It did taste very much like chocolate orange and the icing had an equally good fruity/creamy combination. Madame Luciel did the real taste testing though, and assures me that if you like choc-orange, you'll think these are yummy!
Another feature of the cupcakes that makes them ideal for trick or treaters is that they are all individually packaged, which means no sticky fingers (at YOUR house anyway) and no accusations of poisoning the local kiddies...heh. However, this is also where we come back to the "Trick before you Treat" competition! On each wrapper, there is a challange; "Can you hold a cupcake on your nose for 10 seconds", "How many cupcakes can you juggle?" etc. If you attempt one of the "tricks" stated, and have someone photograph you doing it, you can then submit the picture to the
Facebook contest page. I tried a few, and failed miserably! (So no photos :P) See if you can do any better!
Grand Prize
The winner of the Trick Before You Treat competition will win their height in delicious Fabulous Bakin’ Boys cakes. Two lucky runners up will also win a sample pack of Fabulous Bakin’ Boys goodies.2nd Prize
2nd Prize
Two runners up will win a selection box of Fabulous Bakin’ Boys cakes.
Prize Eligibility
Only persons residing in United Kingdom who are at least 13 years of age can enter.
Contest Starts:
September 28, 2011 @ 09:00 am (BST)
Contest Ends:
November 07, 2011 @ 02:00 pm (GMT)
The treats are available at a special introductory price of £1.00 per pack of six (RRP £1.49) in Tesco, ASDA, Budgens, Londis, and Dairy Crest, as well as on EasyJet flights.
To enter the contest, or for more information on The Fabulous Bakin' Boys, you can visit the following sites:
Many thanks to Claire from Bottle PR & Fabulous Bakin' Boys for the cupcakes and information!
This region west of Romania, surrounding the city of Timisoara, is the home of our multi award winning producers Cremela Recaş. The vineyard areas and wine region have both benefited from centuries of influence from Hungarian, Bavarian and Austrian immigrants – all laying claim to have influenced the present day viticulture.
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