I know I’ve said this before, but I love to use Halloween candy molds and cookie cutters to create easy Halloween inspired food. They’re the perfect way to add a simple garnish or that special touch to make an otherwise normal food recipe something festive for Halloween and this Catacomb Crumble Topping is just that. A simple combination of butter, flour, sugar, and cinnamon is molded into skull-shaped streusel that can be used to top coffee cakes, pumpkin bread or muffins, or even Dutch apple pie for a deliciously fun and easy way to add a little Halloween flair. Enjoy!
Catacomb Crumble Topping
Add buttery skull-shaped streusel topping to coffee cakes, pumpkin bread, or even Dutch apple pie for an easy way to add a bit of spooky for Halloween.
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Servings: 1 loaf
Ingredients
Catacomb Crumble Topping
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup butter, softened
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 tsp cinnamon
Pumpkin Bread
- 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 1 cup sugar
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
Instructions
Catacomb Crumble (Skull streusel)
- Make skull streusel ahead of time and keep refrigerated.
- Add streusel ingredients to a medium bowl and use a fork to cut in butter until combined. Transfer ½ tsp of the streusel mixture into each skull cavity of the mold and use the back of the teaspoon to pack the mixture into the mold. Place mold in the freezer for about 10 minutes to set the skulls and tap to remove skulls on to parchment paper. Store streusel skulls in a plastic container and pop it back in the fridge. Repeat until you have about 60 skulls. Reserve the remaining streusel mixture. Prepare pumpkin batter.
Pumpkin Bread
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger and then add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture. Mix until just combined.
- Loaf pan: Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and then add about half the pumpkin bread batter. Sprinkle half of the remaining (non-skull) streusel topping over batter. Top with the rest of the batter and then sprinkle top with the rest of the (non-skull) streusel topping and then add about half the skulls to the top of the loaf. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove loaf from oven and top it with the remaining skull streusel, filling in where the bread has expanded. Return the loaf back into the oven and allow to bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely. Wrap and store at room temperature for up to 4 days or 10 days in the refrigerator. Muffins: Add cupcake liners to cupcake pan. Use a small cookie scoop to add a small amount of batter to the bottom of each cupcake liner. Sprinkle each with about 1 tsp of streusel and then add another layer of batter. Sprinkle with streusel topping, add about 3-4 skulls to center of muffins. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and add a few more skulls, filling in where the bread has expanded. Bake an additional 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely. Wrap and store at room temperature for up to 4 days or 10 days in the refrigerator.
Notes
Skull molds from Shapem.com
What a great idea! Those muffins are adorable. Can’t wait to try this.
I’m so glad you like them Bethany, they were really fun to make. Please let me know how they turn out for you. 🖤 Lori
I had trouble with my skulls “melting” into indistinguishable blobs. They still tasted good, but that wasn’t what I was going for.
Also, what size loaf pan did you use?
Sorry to hear that Doreen. Sounds like your flour, sugar, butter ratio was off. Not sure how you measured out your flour, but it’s best to spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level it off with a straight edge spatula. For the brown sugar make sure you pack it into the measuring cup. (I’ll add that instruction to the recipe, I realized I didn’t include it.) And I used premeasured 1/2 cup stick of butter. Hopefully that will give you better results. Also I believe I used a standard sized loaf pan (8.5 x 4.5). Hope you give it another try. 🙂
🖤Lori
I had this same issue. Looking at other strudel recipes,I think there’s too much butter. It’s too wet
Hi! I plan on making this later this week! I’m curious of your preference – if I’m making it 2 days before a party, would you recommend storing at room temperature or in the refrigerator?
I think it’ll be ok for 2 days at room temp, but if you are worried about it, refrigerate and then take out the morning of your party. Happy Halloween!
🖤Lori
Skulls expanded in the oven.. Not too sure why?
Hmm. That’s interesting, I’m not sure why they did that either.
Sorry that happened to you.
Lori