Here’s a Kitty, and a Kitty …

There’s only one song that makes for a worse Brain Worm than The Llama Song  and I’ll spare you. OK, I won’t: the opening song from season 2 of Sargent Frog is even worse than the Llama Song! It's called - really - National Irresponsible Era by Gagaga SP.  Glutton? OK, follow the bouncing link and be sorry. Be sure to read the dubbed lyrics!
Anyhow.  Halloween treats tend to be pretty predictable – lots of Rice Krispies and pretzels. It's hard to find something in between my-kid-could-make-that and omigosh-she-must've-gone-to-baking-school.  In my search for something different to make for a party Monday night I bumped into this image. Ack! Unbearably adorable!

I found no evidence that the artist ever shared her recipe or instructions, but I did find this homeschooler’s post on attempting to recreate the recipe. OK, it’s Good to Have a Plan!  I went to work.  Here you see the eyes painted on, and my “paint:” confectioner’s sugar, milk and vanilla glaze, with a bit of brown paste food coloring added. I used a toothpick and a needle (I know) to do the decorating. The spouse and girlchild helped with the decorating or I would have been up all night!

I dislike the making of such fiddly stuff, but I do like the results.

Look, itty-bitty-cat butt!

The recipe is good overall; next time I’d use all vanilla instead of both vanilla and almond extract, but that’s because Almond extract always makes me think of love-smitten death. Go grab your copy of “Love in the Time of Cholera,” it’s right at the beginning, I’ll wait. See? Almonds have just never been the same since I first read that. Besides, I have my killer kick-butt homemade Vanilla to work with.

If you make these, keep them small; they won’t cook through if you get ham-handed about it. They must be tiny to work. You could easily make them into owls and pandas too, and even dogs – some of ours seemed to want to cross over into other families.

On another note:

I'm extremely, profoundly grateful to have electricity and heat in my home; many homes nearby do not.  We do not have a fireplace and its's below freezing out there; we'd be in deep trouble if we were to be without power for any extended period.  "Excuse me, can you take us in?  We've got four humans, a dog and cat who do not yet get along, and six rats?!?"  We did OK post-Irene and have pretty good resources for a summer outage but winter is a whole nuther thing.

Have a happy Halloween, with all of the right kinds of scares and none of the wrong kind!