Where to find the best Halloween treats in Pittsburgh

By Sono Motoyama / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Though I’m several decades past my prime trick-or-treating days, Halloween is still one of my favorite holidays.

My kids are aging out of going door to door, but until last year I would get a vicarious kick out of their delight in choosing their costumes and the too-good-to-be-true bonanza of free candy.

I have, however, outgrown the corn syrup-heavy, tooth-achingly sweet candies that are typically handed out on the big day. Luckily, local bakeries have alternatives for those of us who want to observe All Hallows’ Eve without having some goop stuck in every crevice of our molars.

Paddy Cake Bakery

“Halloween’s a big holiday for us,” said Theresa Richter, owner of Paddy Cake Bakery in Bloomfield. “We sell out of stuff every single day.”

The bakery has Halloween items from Oct. 1-31 at various price points. Most popular, she said are the cake pops, which look like Frankenstein, a pumpkin, a ghost or a mummy. They come in vanilla, chocolate or funfetti flavors for $4. There’s also an “Eye Scream” cake pop cone, filled with mini M&M’s.

The ghost cupcakes, $4.60, have a white cake base, a mound of the bakery’s signature buttercream frosting and are covered in fondant icing.

The large cookie cake, $19, is studded with chocolate chips and decorated with Halloween-appropriate designs. And finally, there are decorated cookies in seasonal shapes for $3.50.

Paddy Cake Bakery, 4763 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield

Oakmont Bakery

Oakmont Bakery is not missing out on the fun. Skip the lines and grab one of the pre-packaged boxes of six cupcakes ($18). Three are yellow cake and three chocolate.

All are colorfully decorated, including renditions of a scary eyeball, a ghost, a black cat and Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” a must-watch film of the season. Despite the thick coating of frosting, the cupcakes are surprisingly light and not too sweet.

Oakmont Bakery, 1 Sweet St.

Prantl’s Bakery

Repurposing its famed torte cake batter, Prantl’s Bakery has some Halloween “gems” in the shape of a ghost or pumpkin ($5). These freeform cupcakes use the torte cake as a base, with a dollop of white buttercream, all covered with a fondant icing and finished with buttercream decoration.

For a more substantial crowd, an orange, 7-inch, pumpkin-decorated layer cake has interior spiced cream cheese frosting. It serves eight for $26.

And for those who want to keep it simple, there are sugar cookies decked out in buttercream frosting to look like jack o’ lanterns, witches and fall leaves ($4.60).

Prantl’s Bakery, various locations; prantlsbakery.com

La Gourmandine

As proof that good things come to those who wait, La Gourmandine’s stores will begin offering La Bête (“The Beast”), its spooky pièce de résistance, from Oct. 25 through the end of the month.

Basically a chocolate cream puff, it is chocolate choux dough filled with chocolate namelaka, a silky, Japanese version of ganache, with a heart of berry coulis. The not-very-scary Beast ($4.85) is then decorated with chocolate wings and googly eyes to look like a bat.

Store supervisor Emily Tiberi, who has tasted prototypes of La Bête, assured me it is “delicious.”

La Gourmandine, various locations; lagourmandinebakery.com