Halloween is next week (where has this month gone?) and with it comes the need to create treats appropriate for the holiday. You could whip up a batch up cupcakes like the ones above. I spotted those at a local bakery recently, and according to them, they use a buttercream frosting to get the shape of the ghost. When it has hardened a little, they dip it into a glaze made from powdered sugar and water. I didn't try one (their sugar cookie won out), but they looked delicious.

If cupcakes aren't your style, you could check out some of the ideas that Super Punch has put together. I see Not Martha's spider cakes from last year, as well as a whole host of other creepy, freaky and tasty treats from around the blogosphere.

After all that, if you find yourself still searching for Halloween goodies, make sure to check out the offerings over at Baking Bites. Last year she created Vampire Cupcakes and this year, she followed up her bloody success with Vampire Cookies. If you don't get around to making them for Halloween, you could save the recipes and have a True Blood viewing party instead!

It's Friday afternoon. It's August. I, for one, would rather be at home doing something interesting with the quart of blueberries that have been patiently waiting on the bottom shelf of my fridge for the last week than sitting behind my computer. However, someone must hold down the internet, and so I carry on, doing a little work for my real job and searching the internet for tasty bits to keep you Slashfood readers salivating.

1. Of the many things I love about the city in which I grew up, one is that fact that people are permitted to keep chickens in their backyards inside the city. Tour de Coups is an annual neighborhood tour of the coops in which those chickens live. How I wish I could have gone!
2. My cousins Dan and Sabrina are just weeks away from the arrival of baby #2 and the whole family is waiting excitedly. This week, both The Kitchn and The Wednesday Chef have asked for tips on good foods to take to new moms. I'm bookmarking both posts for near future inspiration.
3. A week doesn't go by without someone doing something new and clever with bacon. This week heralded the arrival of the Bacon Alarm Clock and the Chocolate Covered Bacon Cake.
4. Loobylu tells the story of her mother's chocolate cake and how she never seemed to be able to make it correctly. A baking session with her mom revealed that her mom had given her a recipe that wasn't quite right. Cake sabotage!
5. A clever tip from Not Martha about how to preserve your beer bottle cap when opening, thus enabling you to put it back on the bottle and save the balance of your beer for another time.
6. College cafeterias go trayless to save on food waste, a nation of undergrads wonders how they'll carry five plastic cups of juice now.
   
7. The New York Times Paper Cuts blog features the The American Cookbook Project and I lose a half a day in productivity.
8. Kristin at Cookthink shares how she learned to pan roast a piece of fish so that it stays tender, flavorful and delicate.

If you've been a part of the online community during the last year or so then you know what it means to be Rick Rolled. Someone sends you a link, but when you click on it, instead of being directed to the site you thought you'd see, you are treated to Rick Astley singing his hit, Never Gonna Give You Up. It's a trend that has touched every corner of the internet, including our foodie world. Case in point, the "Rick Rolls" we brought you a few months ago.

Now the infamous Rick Roll has arrived in the form of a birthday cake. Papersatan over at Instructables made one for her boyfriend's birthday recently, and she has given us all step-by-step instructions on how to make one at home.

The cake is pretty simple, but you will need some icing colors and piping tubes to make it happen. For the most part, all the necessary ingredients are simple and inexpensive. Happy Birthday!

[via Not Martha]

For years now, I've been conducting a serious love affair with jars. I'm a particular fan of the wide mouth 20 ounce jar that has become all but impossible to find these days (why is it that companies always discontinue the one item that is my particular favorite?). My collection of jars varies widely in size, shape and age and I used them for everything (this morning I ate yogurt and homemade strawberry/rhubarb compote out of a wide mouth pint jar).

However, until I spotted this post on Not Martha a couple of days ago, it had never occurred to me to use the small-size jars as baking vessels. But now I am in love (and totally obsessed with doing this for myself). I recently bought a dozen of these small, squat jars, so I have plenty on hand to give this a go. For full instructions on how she did this, check out her To Make page.

Remember a few weeks ago when we told you about Megan/Not Martha's ingenious bacon cups (which it turns out she made for a potluck that was hosted by The Gluten-Free Girl. These blogger circles sure are small)? The folks over at the Kitchn took Megan's idea and adapted it using pancetta for terrific results. The pancetta works more easily than the bacon did mostly because it is comes in a round shape to start out with and so adopts the cup shape more readily than strips of bacon do.

This idea may be too late now to use for Easter brunch, but would be a fun way to serve up snacks at your next cocktail or dinner party (it would also be fun to whip up for a March Madness event).

Remember the bacon mat that swept the interwebs last summer? That intrepid food/craft/knitting blogger Megan at Not Martha has taken the basic idea of the bacon mat (it is the premise that bacon, if given the proper support, will bond to itself and hold shapes as it cooks) and turned it into bacon cups! Is there anything that bacon can't do?

She designed them as a breadless BLT, using them to hold small salads of lettuce and tomato. The commenters on her site have run with the idea, suggesting other uses for the crisp, porky vessels. How would you fill them?

I have been subscribing to Everyday Food, Martha Stewart's squat cooking magazine, since it's inception January 2003. I still have every single issue I've received (although right now I'm using issues 1-34 to hold up the corner of a wall-mounted cabinet in my living room that is falling apart). A couple of weeks ago, Megan at Not Martha posted about her own collection of Everyday Food mags, prompted because a commenter on her site had mentioned that the original issue of the magazine had sold for $50 on eBay. The best part of Megan's post is the list she put together, complete with links, to all the recipes from EF that she likes and uses.

Her post got me thinking about my own collection of EF mags and started me flipping through some of my old issues (the ones that aren't anchoring said piece of furniture, at least). I stumbled across a recipe in the December 2006 issue that I made once last year and remembered loving. It's for Braised Chicken with Shallots and is perfect for these cooler winter days. It's also easy and makes good leftovers. The recipe is after the jump.

Feeling crafty this Halloween? Not Martha came up with some really creepy creations that are perfect for a Halloween party. The little cakes use primarily ready-made ingredients, which not only take the pressure off a busy cook who already has more important dishes in the oven, but adds another level of scariness for those of you who are not inclined to consume packaged snack cakes on a regular basis. The bodies of the cake critters are all based on Twinkies, Glo Balls and Ding Dongs and can easily be made with other, similar cakes. The slightly moist surface allows colored sugar and sprinkles to stick readily if you want to change the color of the cake or add a design to the body. The legs are all made with Pocky and used a brilliant method of construction. Each Pocky was cut in two and then the two pieces were fused back together, at the appropriate angle, with chocolate. Matching the color/texture of the Pocky to that of the cakes will give you the most "realistic" outcome, but if your spiders end up with pink legs, you'll have fun putting them together anyway.