As a kid I loved Halloween! I counted down the days till I could wear my costume to school every year. Now that I am a Mom, I look forward to making treats for my kids to share at school parties, doorstep boo-ings and just to have around the house! So, I am super excited to share some of my creepy treats for you to try!
Sassy Mama Age 2
Jar O’ Brains
Thank you Confessions of a Cookbook Queen and Living Locurto! Pictures were provided from the Living Locurto site! This is so grossly exciting!
- Small jars – half pint canning jars from Wal-mart work awesome!
- Seedless Raspberry Jam–Looks like blood and is so easy to work with
- Strawberry cake–I use strawberry boxed cake…I like Duncan Hines. Also, cook it in a jelly roll pan! That way you can use a jar as your cutter and it makes the perfect thickness!
- Frosting–I use white frosting in a jar and just add a few drops of pink and a tiny drop of black to get that pinky grey brain matter color.
Once your cake is cooled, cut a circle of cake the size of your jar. I use the jar as the cutter.
Spoon some raspberry jam over the cake, covering the surface and making sure it reaches the edges of the jar. I use an ample amount to fill in the space.
Put some frosting in your ziploc bag. Hold the bag at a 90 degree angle and squeeze…little wormy things will come out and look AWESOME!
See!
Using leftover cake bits, cut a piece of cake small enough to rest in the center of the “brain frosting”. Place the piece of cake in the middle.
Then you don’t have to use tons of frosting!
Now squiggle all over the place to fill~!
Voila! Brains in a jar~!
Now if that was not gross enough….How about Monster Brain Balls?
These are so simple to make and I have been making these with my kids since they were little….
Monster Brain Balls
- 8 cups of popped popcorn
- 1 package of mini marshmallows
- 1/2 stick of butter
- 2 drops of red food coloring
- gummy worms
- Place popcorn in a large plastic bowl and set aside.
- In a large saucepan melt the butter and marshmallows till smooth. Place 2 drops of red food coloring and mix till blood colored. Pour over popcorn. Stir to coat. Then spray hands with Pam and make balls out of the gooey popcorn. Place worms throughout the balls so they are sticking out. Store in an airtight container!
Pretty sure the rule of blogging is, if you’re going to steal someone’s idea, you have to at least link it back to them. And also you have to make modifications that make it your own. This is exactly what Kristen did on Confessions of a Cookbook Queen http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/2011/10/brains-in-a-jar/
Mind you she posted her’s weeks ago. I can’t believe you stole both these ideas and barely mentioned the people you stole them from.
I hope people that follow this blog know what a fake you are….lame
I understand your concern Deniece but the originator of the recipe was Amy Locurto of Living Locurto and as you can see from my post I gave her both credit for her recipe and photos in my post. Because I had originally seen the recipe on Kristen’s site I also credited her as well.
I assure you that when I find something awesome from someone else I am always diligent to link to their site and give them credit for it.
Thank you for your concern.
First, if you look at the Living Locurto site, Kristan is the author there too.
Second, “I am always diligent to link to their site” is a misstatement, since you didn’t have *links* there when we first came to this page, just bolded text. That’s why Deniece had to add the link in the first place.
Unfortunately, I lost my cached copy of the page when I reloaded to add this comment.
(Since you deleted my previous comment, I’ve had the opportunity to remove some of the snark and hostility. Hopefully you’ll leave this one up.)
I’m with Adam. This is the 3rd version of the post. Kristan had to ask you to remove her pictures and give credit, then after you got caught on tv this a.m., you added the links this afternoon. Just own up and say “Oops…I screwed up and I’m sorry.” You’ll get so much more respect than prevaricating this way.
This is from my most recent post…
Dear Amy, Cookbook Queen and friends,
Although I’ve been lucky enough to get a TV spot and have various food opportunities, I am really a newbie to the food and blogging world. I’ve been learning as I go along and am not extremely computer savvy. I’ve had a great time learning along the way but unfortunately, I made some mistakes this week that really hurt a lot of people. I feel terrible that I have offended so many of my fellow food bloggers. I owe you all a big apology, especially Amy and Cookbook Queen.
After seeing Brains in a Jar, http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/2011/10/brains-in-a-jar/, on Pinterest last week and thinking it was a cute idea, I wanted to pass it along to my followers. Out of the 1,000s of ideas I could have chosen I thought this was a super great one. I felt like promoting one of your ideas and then blogging about it was going to be a way to drive traffic and promote your blog through my other promotional channels. I have since learned that I have to link directly back to your site, not just write text on my post with your name and site.
As for my TV spot, since it’s only 3 minutes, I figured people would come to my site to get the recipe then read your name and website. I hope you believe that I would never try to pass off any of your ideas as my own as it was not my intent. In the future, if I use anyone else’s recipe I will make sure to contact them first and make sure we are on the same page for if/how/what they want featured.
Blogging and cooking is all about sharing. That was my intent and I never meant any harm and I sincerely apologize to all of you. I am simply overwhelmed emotionally at all of the hatred I have received today and I hope you can forgive me and give me another chance!
Sincerely,
Caryn Ross
Dear Anonymous,
If you’re going to troll someone’s blog and call them out about something you may want to start by using your real name and not hiding behind the convenience of “anonymous”. If you want to say something than own it.
Also, Caryn DID credit Living Locurto for her original recipe and photos as you can see in the original post. In fact, she also credited Kristen since that was the first site where she saw the idea.
You should also know that on Caryn’s TV spots she has 3 minutes to do her cooking demonstrations. Which is why she does not list the recipe on the TV show but asks the viewers to visit her blog for the recipe. In so doing the viewers/ readers would read her credits to Amy.
Please go re-check the Living Locurto site and take note of the author at the top of the page. Hint: it’s not Amy. (Nothing against Amy; I’m certain she’s a very nice person, and I feel sorry for her being dragged into this mess.)
Thank you Adam, you are correct. I was mistaken in who originated the recipe. However, it still does not change the fact that Caryn did credit the site.
Adam,
If you took the time to research, you’d find that Kristan and Amy work together on blog posts (it’s called “guest posting” in the blogging world). Kristan often comes up with the recipe and Amy creates the free printables FOR PERSONAL USE. They form a partnership and, in this case, worked together to create a fun Halloween treat. So, in this case, both Kristan and Amy were impacted by the theft of their ideas/product.
Furthermore, it is completely wrong to copy photos of work and try to pass them as your own (um, duh). If Caryn had taken the time to create these at home, photograph her work, and then post about it, she would have been completely in her right to do so (although credit and link-backs would still need to be properly displayed as she was NOT the creator of these cupcakes and used Amy’s graphics). **At the VERY least she should have asked permission!!**
There are (were) other examples on this website but I see now that Caryn has been busy trying to salvage her image and has since corrected some of the glaring plagiarism found earlier this morning.
Tami,
We’re actually on the same side here. 🙂
I did in fact do my research, and that’s how I knew that Kristan had provided the recipe – she posted a link to it from her own blog. However, at first I believed the entirety of the work was done by her.
Later I re-read her post, which said that Amy had done the stickers and printables, and posted a follow-up to my comment above. Alas, my follow-up seems to have disappeared…
oh, my bad. Sorry about the misunderstanding Adam! 🙂
So the reason she attempted to opass the idea off as her own was because she only had 3 minutes on TV? Nope. Not buying it. 5 Seconds to say ” I saw this great idea from XXX blog, go to my website for the link” takes only a few seconds. What she did was attempt to pass off someone else’s ideas as her own on TV. Period. No wonder she’s deleting comments all over the place, I would be embarassed also. How about a simple apology? Show some grace when you have obviously made what appears to be an intentional appropriation of someone else’s hard work and creativity.
Dear Deniece, Adam, Sarakate, Christyn & Tami….How dare you get involved in bashing someone publicaly when #1 it has nothing to do with you #2 people makes mistakes, #3 Caryn has only been at this “blogging” and TV thing for over a year (although she has been cooking her whole life), #4 you don’t even know her or the kind of person she is. You have no idea how your comments are torturing her and causing her lack of sleep. It wasn’t enough that she was losing sleep and feeling terrible about the mistake (which I must mention she and the author came to an understanding).
Very rarely do people get to truly follow their dreams. Caryn is doing that. After winning a national contest (with an original recipe) it confirmed that she should follow her dream. I see that in the comments you didn’t put your own site’s down for others to see and enjoy (more likely because you are embarrassed) if you weren’t, you would have let the rest of us enjoy your site. Maybe you don’t have a site at all.
Judges 11:27
I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the LORD, the Judge, decide the dispute this day.
Love you Caryn, don’t let these little people get to you….
@John –
First, she’s been blogging at least twice as long. I found posts on other blogs belonging to her dating back to at least May 2009. Second, she’s had to change this post 3 times to finally get it right. Three, I wrote MY comment before her apology.
As to your Judges quote – tell me again what your post above was NOT judging?
Sara
John,
You are entitled to your opinion, especially since you seem to be close to Caryn. I was not “judging” her as a person, but rather explaining the protocol for blogging. It’s an unspoken rule/etiquette that you don’t steal from other people’s blogs. Period. I actually found quite a few cases of photos and recipes taken from websites and posted with no credit to original creators on this blog, until they were removed or corrected. I don’t care how long someone blogs, if you take an idea from someone, you link to them and you never, never use their photos on your site without permission. I’m sorry Caryn is upset, but this is what comes of not respecting other blogger’s work and giving credit where credit is due. I’m sure she would feel the same if the roles were reversed (and in which case I would be defending HER).
As far as not posting my blog on here, pointless debate and you have no room to “judge” me for not linking to it on here since, quite frankly, we’re talking about stealing.