Halloween Treats!

It’s 2 weeks until Halloween and it’s Friday 13th today, so I thought it would be a perfect time to write about Halloween Treats!

Last year we had a mini Halloween party with some of the kids’ friends from school and I spent some time beforehand trawling through Pinterest for snack ideas. Wow, there are some clever people out there! Things in the shape of ghosts work particularly well because they are so easy – I mean pretty much dunk it in white chocolate and draw eyes on it! I am not amazing at fiddly things, so I was particularly looking for easy things to do, and I think these were really effective.

In my family we always made a big deal of Halloween because my brother’s birthday is 2 days before it. My Mum had loads of fun making our dining room look spooky and we always had a fancy dress party for my brother’s birthday. Halloween is much bigger in the UK and Ireland than it is over here where, despite the European origins of a lot of Australians, the common feeling is that Halloween is a trashy American thing.

Quick Halloween History Lesson

It’s true, in America the whole thing may have become over-the-top commercialised since Irish immigrants introduced it there about 60 years ago, but the earliest beginnings of Halloween can be traced back 2000 years to the Celts in Europe. Samhain (“sah-win”) marked the end of Summer and the beginning of Winter, a time of darkness. Dressing up as ghouls was a way of blending in and not being noticed on a night when they believed the spirits of the dead were crossing over to the next world en masse.

The trick or treating part of our modern Halloween comes from Medieval times, when people would go door-to-door and perform in exchange for food or money. I assume that was because food was becoming scarce – the harvest was over – and it was getting cold at that time of year! My Mum always made us do tricks at peoples doors in exchange for our Halloween treats (sooo embarrassing); we would tell a Halloween-themed joke or I would make my little brother ‘disappear’ (shove him into the bushes).

On to the recipes!

Pretzel Ghosts

I love these, they look so funny! They are sweet and crunchy and slightly salty – yum. I couldn’t find candy eyes in the shops last year, so I ended up making the eyes from shop-bought white fondant icing and adding a black blob for a pupil. I bought write-on gel for this (first thing I saw), but it stays wet, so the eyes kept smudging – I definitely recommend black writing icing instead (if you can’t get candy eyes).

Ingredients

• 150g white chocolate or white chocolate melts
• 1 tsp vegetable shortening/copha/coconut oil
• 30 pretzels
• 60 candy eyes, or a small ball of white fondant icing and a tube of black writing icing

Method

1. If you are using fondant icing for the eyes, then roll 60 little balls and squeeze on a tiny blob of writing icing for the black pupils. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Melt the white chocolate and shortening or coconut oil in a bowl in the microwave in 10 second blasts, stirring between each blast until melted.
3. Quickly dip each pretzel into the melted chocolate, turning with a fork. Tap the fork (with the dunked pretzel on the end) on the side of the bowl to tap off excess chocolate and to make a hole for the mouth.
4. Place the coated pretzel on the lined baking tray and immediately place 2 eyes over the top 2 holes. Repeat with the rest of the pretzels.
5. Leave the pretzels to harden in a cool place, then peel them off the baking paper and serve.

If the chocolate starts to harden in the bowl before you have finished, then you can re-melt it in the microwave, but only do this once. You may have enough chocolate left to do a few more, or dunk some strawberries in – they look pretty good as ghosts (see picture above).

Pus and Blood Clots

This is pretty gross-sounding, but very easy and effective.

Ingredients

• 1 packet of lime (green) jelly (jello)
• 1 packet of lemon (yellow) jelly
• 1 packet of strawberry (red) jelly
• 1 packet of blackcurrant (purple) jelly

Method

1. Make up each colour of jelly in separate bowls according to the packet instructions.
2. Once set, stir each jelly to break it up into globs.
3. Gently mix the red and purple jelly together for the ‘blood clots’, and gently mix the green and yellow jelly together for the ‘pus’.
4. Serve in small ramekins or paper/plastic disposable cups with spoons

Once set, jelly will last in the fridge for 3 days. The jelly can be a bit soft, especially after it’s been stirred up, so I would recommend using 50-100ml less cold water than specified on the jelly instructions when making it to make sure it’s nice and firm.

Witches Brew

I like to have at least one weird looking drink for the party! Here are a few ideas:

1. My Mum used to use equal amounts of orange juice and lemonade with a couple of drops of blue food colouring, which turns it a murky green (see the bottle on the left in the picture).
2. Of course, you needn’t add your own food colouring at all, there are plenty of bright-coloured soft drinks available. Just decant a blue, green or red soda into a punch bowl or a glass jug and there you go! You could make the shop-bought stuff look murky by adding a dash of orange or pineapple juice if you like (try it in a small glass first to test the effect).
3. Last year I added green food colouring to milk, which looked great (in the picture above I used blue colouring instead). To make it a bit less strange for the kids to drink, I think next time I would add some peppermint essence. You can actually buy cartons of mint flavoured milk in some parts of Australia, so that would be a good shortcut.
4. Try adding slices of cucumber or jelly worms to float around and add to the effect.

Severed Finger Hot Dogs

Last year I served sausages with ketchup for dipping with a vague idea in mind that they looked like fingers, but I want to take it up a notch this year!

Here, I used a knife to shave off a chunk from one end of a small hotdog sausage to look like a finger nail and then made some little cuts to replicate knuckles. I split my hotdog buns down the middle, cut them in half, then splodged some tomato sauce around each half before nestling the little fingers inside. The kids loved this!

If you are looking for more Halloween ideas, click here to see my Halloween Pinterest Board

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