The Wilton Chocolate Cookie House Kit!

Ok, so it’s 1:49 AM as I start writing this, approximately 13 years after I wrote that last post, as some of you have reminded me. A lot. Well, let’s not waste any more time with pleasantries. Tis the season and here we are.

This year, season wise, is going to be a lean one. Being newly unemployed means the green leafy spendy monies are in short supply, so we’re going minimalist this time around. I still haven’t drug my decorations out yet, but will probably get on that this week. I got a lot last year, and right after Halloween was over, my cousin gave me a lot more. So between my own stuff, and my newly acquired Halloween-me-downs, I’ll have a lot to display. But, as far as newly bought stuff for this year, well, it might not be much. In fact, I think you’re about to read about what might be my sole purchase of the season. It’s something I’ve wanted to try out for a few years now, and on a grocery-buying trip to Wally World a couple of weeks ago, I had a moment of weakness and bought the sucker. I present to you…

The Wilton Chocolate Cookie House Kit!

I’ve been eyeing these things in the stores for the past few years, and like a sad, drunk girl staying too late at the bar, I think this one was eyeing me back. So, I broke down and took her home. Time to make some bad decisions. First off, let’s open this bitch up and see what’s inside. Here are the contents:

Here’s what we’re looking at (taken from the side of the box):

2 Round decorating tips and disposable decorating bags
2 Icing mixes, white and orange, artificially vanilla flavored (instructions included)
1 Pre-baked, pre-assembled chocolate flavored cookie haunted house
Pre-made ghost icing decoration
Purple liquid icing color
Card board base
Complete decorating instructions (bullshit)
Colorful candy

Hoookaaaay, here we go. First thing I noticed right away is that Wilton chocolate houses don’t hold up too well under pressure, or at least transportation. Despite 10 yards of poppy, bubble wrap poked down in the box, we still ended up cracked.

That’s ok though. It’s a haunted house. We’ll chalk it up to effect. Now, on to the frosting. Old Wilton doesn’t make it too easy for you, I’ll say that for them. Is there frosting in there? Well, yes and no. Can you just squeeze it right onto the house? Sort of. As we’ll see, it won’t be without a fight. What you get are two packets of what essentially looks like colored flour, and it’s your responsibility to add water to it, mix it like mad, and create frosting. You pour a packet in a bowl. Doesn’t matter which one (I chose orange for reasons I’ll discuss in a sec), and then add the recommended 3 tablespoons or so of water, mix it (preferably with an electric mixer, blender, whatever), and presto-chango, you have frosting. As I said earlier, bullshit. First of all 3 tablespoons of water doesn’t do jack. All you end up with is clumped up chunks of flour like powdery stuff. I don’t have a mixer, so I’m mixing like a nut by hand with a whisk. I figure out pretty quickly that the whisk just isn’t cutting it, so I just start using the spoon. That makes mixing a lot easier, but a LOT more water is necessary. In case you’re planning on attempting this yourself, by 3 tablespoons, they actually mean about 12. And by 12, I mean, I finally just ran water from the faucet straight into the bowl until I got something that actually worked. Finally, after a lot of frustration, water, and frantic mixing, I came up with this.

It was actually just a smidge too watery, but I drained a lot of it out. I won’t go into detail about the ordeal of loading the frosting into the “decorating bags”, but that was a sticky, messy adventure in and of itself. Another note — twisty-ties are your friends that should never be under appreciated. Call your favorite twisty-tie tonight and tell her how much you love her.

Right, so onto the purple frosting. This was the same drill as the orange, only this one required a separate food coloring packet deal that you had to mix in with the powder. This is why I did the orange one first. I wanted that one to be the trial run before I started messing around with multiple colors and such. It recommends that you slowly add the purple into the white powder until you get the desired shade of purple. Of course I read that as, dump every bit in and get to stirrin’. I’m looking for the darkest, most Halloweenerific shade I can get anyway, and if there’s one thing I have in common with Vicky Vale, it’s that “I loooooove purple”.

Chocolate house? Check. Loaded frosting bags? Check. Candy? Check. Let’s do this.

I’m picking one wide side and making this the front of my house. I decided right off the bat that the front door was going to look like a coffin, because that’s just what you do, and went about making my first tentative frosting outline. It came out pretty smooth, a lot better than I expected. I outlined the door with orange, filled in the middle with purple, and used a butter knife to spread it around and even it out. Then moved on to the windows and decided right away I was going for an Amityville Horror kind of deal with those. I hope I succeeded. And let me say, and I think this goes without saying, there is NO WAY that your house is going to look anywhere close to as good as the pics on the box. It ain’t happening. That frosting is just not that easily controlled. Forget about it. Mine looks like I went at it mid-sneeze compared to some of the professional level Ace of Cakes shit they’ve got going on in those pictures. Don’t feel too bad when you’re decorating yours. It’s rigged from the get-go, but you should expect that going in when you’re dealing with Wilton. This ain’t Betty Crocker we’re talking about here.

Now, after the door, windows, and little green dots were applied (notice the one for the doorknob? I thought that was clever), there was one thing left to do for this side. Friends, this will be the most important decision you will ever make in your life. It’s the ghost. You see, Wilton provides you with one, pre-made frosting ghost. One. That’s it. And the placement of this son of a bitch is crucial. You have never faced a decision so nerve-racking and sweat-inducing all your days as to where you’re going to place that ghost. That thing will MAKE OR BREAK your house. Forget what college you’re going to. Forget who you’re going to marry. Forget whether or not you’re going to keep the baby. It’s game time. In terms of major life decisions, this is some serious “choose the form of the destroyer” shit right here. And this is how it went down…

Mother puss bucket!

So, with that hurdle jumped, in the immortal words of BBD, time to slap it up, flip it, rub it down. On to the other side. I decided with this one, I’m going all-out scary punkin face. Forget windows, forget doors, I’m talking skeery eyes and pointy-tooth mouth. The eyes came easily enough. Squirted them out, threw some bats in there, done and done. And then things got tricky. The instructions warn you to cover the tips of the decorating bags with a warm cloth because the frosting can dry out. Pssht. I’m sure it won’t be a problem, right?….Um. Problem. Yep, I got half way into doing the mouth, and my orange just died on me. It quickly became a dried up, clumpy mess. So, I took it back to the sink, put a little more water in the bag, and that sort of solved the problem temporarily, but not really. I realized I was living on borrowed time here because what little frosting I was getting was really watery and dripping everywhere, if it was even coming out at all. So, I quickly finished up the mouth and made some attempt at a nose. As you can see, the nose just started to run, and dripped orange Hallo-snot all down into the mouth. But in the spirit of cracked chocolate roofs, it’s all in the effect. But, this thing needed to be more evil. Before I finish this up and move on to the roof (wait till you see what we have in store for that), I had to do something to salvage this side. So, what else are you going to do when you’ve got extra purple icing and you need to please Samhain?… Droopy frosting pentagram, that’s what! Behold!

Right, so now we move on to the roof. There are those out there who say I don’t blog enough. Those who doubt me. Those who have even put a lot of time and effort into getting me motivated, only to feel their efforts have gone unnoticed or ignored altogether. To those, I would say NAY! For I know where my bread is buttered! So, I dedicate the roof of my chocolate house of horrors to a couple of them. I present to you…

Mystie’s Crown Combo!                                               kb’s The Pilver!
 

Click them, know them, love them. You’ll never be the same.
 
 
 
 
 

Oh, and because I had a bunch of leftover bats (and long time readers know I LOVE the bats), I threw some of those on the roof too just to fancy it up a bit.

So, that’s it. After a messy attempt at drawing out a window on each side of this thing, it’s done. Here it is, finished, with gumdrop adornment, ready to strike fear in your heart, and cavities in your mouth. Oh, and Lenore and Venal Anatomica showed up! It’s a Monster Mash!

Next up, I actually try to eat this thing (believe it or not, I haven’t even taken a bite of it yet and I did all this 24 hours ago), put up some decorations, and I carve me a punkin! Hail Satan!