Recipe- Hallowe'en Cupcakes

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! Now, on principle, I'm against Hallowe'en as a holiday, but who can resist some cute cupcakes? I know that you're probably wondering why I don't like a holiday that's all about candy and scary movies, but there are a number of reasons for it:

1. It's genetic. My mother HATES Hallowe'en. She hasn't always, but it gets more and more pronounced every year. She rejoices if she has some reason to be out of the house on that night, and she's getting to the point where she just turns off all of the lights and pretends not to be home.
   
2. It promotes greed, unhealthy eating, and cavities (this is said with a bit of a wink, but you know it's true!)
3. For grown-ups like ourselves, it's a bad excuse to get dressed up in semi-pornographic costumes and get drunk.
4. It's a silly corruption of what used to be a quite interesting pagan/ Christian holiday.
   
5. Costumes are expensive, and you can only wear them once a year.
   
6. I'm too old to go trick-or-treating anymore. :(
   

There are a couple of good things about Hallowe'en, though, namely fun cupcakes and half- priced candy on November 1st. But as the hubby and I can't afford to buy costumes that we'll only be able to wear for about 3 hours, we decided to make cupcakes and see a movie instead. I used the recipe for Gummi Worm cupcakes on foodnetwork.com. I know that it looks a bit strange at first, having Coke in the batter, but they turned out great. I ignored the icing recipe and just bought a tub of Betty Crocker vanilla icing, which I tinted orange with food colouring, and it looks and tastes great. I like that the chocolate batter shows through the white tin liners, because then there's a nice contrast between black and orange. And they sure are yummy.

The hubby and I went to see The Prestige tonight, which I'll review in another posting. And I made chili for dinner. I think today will have to be a double posting day; I mentioned my mom in this one, and the next one will have to talk about my dad and his famous chili recipe. Man, is it good- and spicy! Check back for that one later on tonight.

Just as a note, if you'd like to be emailed whenever I update, just let me know, and I'll put you on the list. I'm going to be posting at least every other day, so check back often.