My Halloween Sweets

I was asked to bring something for the annual Halloween festivities at my cousin's home. A great house filled with over 50 mommies, daddies and munchkins - I knew it had to be something all ages would love! Last year I made Brownie Ghosts which were a huge hit! This year I need to kick it up a notch. I searched and searched online and found a yummy, not too complicated treat! Peanut Butter Eyes!!!! I found the recipe n RecipeZaar.com -> http://www.recipezaar.com/Halloween-Eyeball-Cookies-143344
Here's the recipe with some of my adaptations...

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened - I used Smart Balance
1 1/2 cups peanut butter - I used reduced fat!
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
18 ounces white dipping chocolate - 3 boxes
1/2 cup mini chocolate chip
blue food coloring

Directions

1. Cream the butter and peanut butter together.
2. Beat in the vanilla and sugar.
3. Chill for 1/2 hour.
4. Roll into small balls, chill on wax paper for another 1/2 hour.
5. In a microwave, melt the white dipping chocolate.
6. Using two spoons dip the eyeballs into the white chocolate.
7. Let cool on waxed paper until firm. Chilling will speed up the process.
8. Pour a drop or two of blue food coloring into the remaining melted chocolate.
9. Make a round iris on the eyeball, and immediately press a miniature chocolate chip in the center for a pupil, doing 5 at at time.
10. For the bloodshot effect, dip the tiny end of a toothpick in red food colouring and squiggle the lines from the pupil outward, but not quite to the edges of the ball.
11. These are quite tasty--considering how creepy they are.

Note: White dipping chocolate is also known as white bark.

One of my biggest lessons learned is to keep the cooled - whether in the fridge or on the counter if it is cool enough. I set my eyes on display and many of them go mushy - still super yummy, but messier than needed.

For whatever reason I never took a picture of the final product. The last picture was taken as we were adding the pupils. I put them on the tree cupcake holders, that held 24 eyes per tree. They looked great and the reaction I got from the party was fantastic!