A Teacher's Lounge Celebration...

Once a month the teacher's lounge is fully decorated and stocked with snacks of all kinds. Decadent sausage rolls (my recipe is unrivaled), delicious snack mixes, cream cheese blocks with chipotle jelly, crackers and dips, assorted fruits and vegetables and desserts of all kinds are proudly displayed. These treats are put out once a month in honor of birthdays. Instead of having many mini-celebrations, we combine all of the birthdays into a mega celebration totally worth having. And, as all of my fellow teachers will tell you, nothing makes us happier than a delicious food day in the lounge! We live for them. My team always has November. Each teammate brings something salty or savory and something sweet. For me, it is always the sausage pinwheels and some kind of cookie. However, this year I knew I was going to bring CUPCAKES. Thanksgiving is also a time for pumpkin (um, pumpkin pie anyone? I like my whip cream with a side of pie...) and my Halloween cupcakes were such a hit, I decided to revisit my pumpkin/brown sugar/cinnamon cream cheese creation with a different topper. These were to be fall themed, so I got to work mixing fondant in foliage colors, cutting and inlaying leaves, and hand painting steams on each little cupcake. The result, as my little brother from another mother would say, was out of this world!

Some pretty (edible) fall foliage!

Some more yummy treats.

Unitl next time, sweet dreams!

-J