Eyes and Bones Brownies

Hello and happy October! I am so happy to be back and I’m so glad that it’s finally fall. The crisp air and the bright sun are making me feel pretty inspired, so that’s why I’ve decided to change a couple of things on the blog (mostly update things). I’m really excited for these changes and I hope that you’ll like them too. The most important change, in my humble opinion, is that Tea and Mascara now has its very own Instagram page!!! This is where I’ll post anytime there's something new on the blog, whether that be a new post or a change in the posting schedule. You can also send me messages directly on there and it’s a bit of an easier way to leave comments. In the first post, I go into details about what has changed lately. Check it out!

For the month of October, I felt incredibly inspired to bake. Fall makes us all want to stay at home and make some magic in the kitchen, doesn’t it? For that reason, I’ve decided to do a whole month of baking, which means every post this month will be a sweet recipe! There will be a total of four recipes, one for each week in October. Who’s excited?!

When I had that idea, I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want it to be boring. I don’t want to make a new chocolate chip cookie variation each week (although chocolate chip cookies are freakin’ delicious). Last fall, I made three recipes using pumpkin; pumpkin blondies, a pumpkin marble cake and maple & pumpkin muffins. This year, I wanted to do something Halloween-themed. That’s why I’ve decided to make recipes using different Halloween candies! Some will be spooky, some will be more classic and some, like this week’s post, will be kids-friendly.

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Today, I am sharing the recipe for these amazing Eyes & Bones Brownies. It took me a while to get this recipe just right, but I am so proud of the result. These are chocolatey, gooey and crunchy at the same time. They feature walnuts (for the bones) and gummy eyeballs. You can find these at certain grocery stores around Halloween, or at a bulk food store. This is a great recipe if you have kids, because the brownies are so easy to make, and your little ones can help putting in the food coloring for the red velvet or the candies. These would also be great for a kids’ Halloween party.

Extra tips:

• Don’t be alarmed; it takes a lot of red food coloring to make a red velvet batter. I used about 2 tbs.
  
• When pressing in the gummy eyeballs, be careful not to push them too much. Since these are pretty heavy, they will sink when the brownie is cooking and find themselves in the middle of the cake. If you press them in too much, they’ll sink all the way to the bottom, creating whole under the brownie.
• This is also why it’s important to cut the gummy eyeballs into 4. Otherwise, they are too heavy and your brownie looks like lava.
• When you are adding the sugar eyeballs on top, try to keep in mind that you’ll want to cut the brownies into squares when they are cooled. Sugar eyeballs are pretty hard to cut into (not to say impossible).

These are super easy to make and I thought they would be perfect to kick off the month. Feel free to share this recipe with your friends and let them know about the blog. If you end up recreating this recipe for your own Halloween party, please tag me in your pictures using the hashtag #teaandmascara. I’ll see you next week for another recipe!

Much love,