These are part of my contribution to the school's Halloween Bash on Friday night. They're basically peppermint creams, with part of the icing mixture coloured green and plonked on top of circles of the white icing. Then I added an upside-down chocolate chip for the pupils and some red food colouring, applied with a cocktail stick, to make the eyes look bloodshot. I added a wash of green and red food colouring to the irises as the green was a bit too pastel to be scary. I'm rather proud of them, as (as far as I know), they're all my own invention!*I had to leave my peppermint essence behind when we moved, but was fairly confident that Bulk Barn would carry it. Bulk Barn is my favourite Canadian store. The first one I noticed was in the Belleville mall, but as its storefront display was entirely made up of pick'n'mix-style bins of sweets, I didn't go inside for ages. When I did, I discovered aisles of loose goods like nuts, dried fruit, grains, pastas, flours and spices. It's like a cross between a health-food shop and Woolworths (with a correspondingly varied clientele). Wholewheat pasta and cous-cous are hard to find in the supermarkets (at least in decent sized packages), so Bulk Barn is great for that kind of thing. I thought they were letting me down today though, as there was vanilla essence, almond extract and even brandy essence (what?), but no peppermint. Then at the till I found a little display of various oils, including both spearmint and peppermint, so I used peppermint oil instead of essence. I love you, Bulk Barn.
*Now I come to think of it, the phrase 'Ogre's eyeballs' appears in an episode in Diana Wynne Jones's The Ogre Downstairs, so that isn't particularly original. It's a brilliant book - and I think the only children's book I've come across where a (very) passing knowledge of Latin and Greek actually adds to the enjoyment of the story.
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