Gory Goodies
See also: Halloween at Home
Drinks
Witches Brew
This makes a nice foaming drink. In a clear punch bowl mix equal parts blue kool-aid and lemon-lime pop. Add some crushed dry ice, and continue to add more every half hour or so. Caution! Don’t let kids serve themselves, because dry ice can cause lips and tongue to freeze. Scoop it out yourself and leave the dry ice in the bottom. For an extra touch, add orange peel (just the orange part) cut into worm shapes, and seedless grapes for “eyeballs.”
Drink Decay
Add black paste food coloring to any drink you enjoy. Mix well.
Halloween Punch
Yield: 24 servings
Mix together a 12 ounce can of orange juice concentrate, a 12 ounce bottle of white grape juice, 2 liter bottle of 7-Up, pint of lemon or lime sherbet, and several drops of green food coloring (rum or vodka to taste, optional). If desired, serve with large, buoyant, and well-washed plastic spiders on the top!
Hand in the Punch
Ingredients:
Blood Red Ice
For deep red ice, try cherry kool-aid. Can even be frozen inside a plastic glove, now this really adds some snap to a punchbowl!
Mystery Punch
Stir all ingredients together until well blended. Chill 1 hour. Serve cold with blood red ice mold (above) To serve warm, after chilling, bring mixture to a boil, then simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.
Directions:
Turn the Playtex glove inside out so the flannel is on the outside. Choose a food color that contrasts with the color of the punch. Color sufficient water to fill the latex glove then seal the glove with the rubber band. Put the water-filled glove in the deep freeze (you can use the refrigerator freezer, but the deep-freeze will be colder) and allow to freeze solid (overnight, at least). When the punch is ready for serving, remove the glove from the freezer. Run hot water over it – not too long, just enough to unstick the glove from the ice. Peel the glove off the “hand” and place the hand in the punch where it will float and keep the punch cool.
Eerie Witch’s Brew
Ingredients:
Directions:
A smoking cauldron of punch made with grapes and orange peel masquerading as eyeballs and worms.
A SERIOUS CAUTION: never touch dry ice; use tongs to handle.
In a 1 to 2 quart pan, bring 1 cup of cranberry juice and candied ginger to a boil over high heat.
Boil, uncovered, about 2 minutes, set aside.
With a vegetable peeler, pare peel (colored part only) from oranges; cut peel into thin 2 in long worms; or use an Oriental shredder to make long shreds. Add orange peel to cranberry mixture.
Cover and chill at least 4 hours or as long as overnight.
Juice oranges; put juice in a 6 to 8 quart pan or heavy bowl. Stir in cranberry-ginger mixture, the 3 cups cranberry juice, apple concentrate, lime aid, grapes and water. If made ahead, cover and chill up to 2 hours. Add ginger ale and about a 1 pound piece of dry ice (DO NOT put small pieces in punch or cups); ice should smolder at least 30 minutes. Ladle into cups. Add any remaining ice when bubbling ceases.
Makes 5 qt; allow about 1 1/2 c for a serving.
Dips, Snacks, & Appetizers
Bloody Popcorn
Add some red food coloring to the butter you are melting. Incidentally, to get true red or black colors, buy paste food coloring from a craft or cake decorating supply store. No matter how many drops of liquid red you add, it’ll always be some shade of pink. When the red butter is melted, pour it over the popcorn as usual.
Sticks and Stones
Easy. Pretzel sticks and candy that looks like rocks. Often sold in bulk food sections.
Slug Guts
Use any dip you like for chips or veggies.
Orange Worms
Yield: 13 servings
Wiggle these worms any way you want on your plate. If you like, give them ‘eyes’ made from licorice bits.
Place apricots in colander and let drain. Place drained apricots in food processor, cover, and whirl until well blended. Place gelatin in 3 quart pan, add orange juice, and let stand for 5 minutes to soften gelatin. Place pan on burner and bring to a boil over med/high heat,stirring with whisk. Turn off burner and remove pan to rack. Add apricots and mix with whisk until well blended. Pour into baking pan,cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 4 hours, until set. Use butter knife to cut gelatin crosswise into 9 inch long, 1 inch wide strips. (you should have about 13 strips) Use pancake turner to remove strips to serving plate. Use your hands to twist strips into worm shapes. Makes 13 worms.
Origin: Cookbook Digest Sept/Oct 1993.
Kids’ Popcorn Balls
Yield: 6 servings
Cook 1/2 cup molasses with corn syrup until thermometer reaches hard crack stage, about 270 degrees. Stir in butter and salt. Have the popcorn in a bowl. Slowly stir in the mixture with a wooden spoon. Coat all the popcorn. IMPORTANT! Butter your hands lightly and shape the popcorn into balls. Make them the size you want. Set them on wax paper and let them harden. Wrap the ones you don’t eat with wax paper.
Cheese Eyeballs
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Shred cheese in work bowl of food processor, then place metal chopping blade in work bowl and add margarine. Combine salt, paprika, and flour in separate bowl. Turn on food processor, and slowly add flour mixture through the feed tube. Stop processing as soon as ingredients are combined. Measure approximately one teaspoon of this mixture and form an “eyeball” around an olive. Turn the olive in the “eyeball” so that it is “staring” outward.
This recipe will yield about 24 “eyeballs”.
Line up the eyeballs on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes.
If you want to make these ahead of time, freeze them UNBAKED on the cookie sheet and transfer to a plastic bag when frozen. Then just thaw and bake when needed.
Oozing Eyeballs or Deviled Eggs
Start with deviled eggs make nasty faces on the yolk part (tint with red food coloring) with sliced green olives for eyes and green or red pepper for mouth and eyebrows.
Strained Eyeballs
Half eggs width-wise. Remove yolks and fill the hole with cream cheese, smoothing surface as much as possible. Press an olive into each cream cheese eyeball, pimento up, for an eerie green iris and red pupil. Dip a toothpick into ketchup and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese.
Bug Bites
Color cream cheese green, put pickle slice on cracker, add lump of cream cheese and stick in two almond slices to look like wings. Can add small olive pieces to look like eyes.
Brain Dip
Cut florets from the top of the cauliflower until you have a cauliflower ‘bowl’. Remove greens from bottom. Cut stems from radishes, leave the root, remove skin. Using toothpicks and food coloring, draw an eyeball on the flat part of the radish (where the top was). The root will look like the optic nerve. Fill cauliflower with dip, garnish with radish ‘eyes’, serve with veggies and crackers.
Deadly Dipper
Try humus dip and use enough black beans beside the garbanzo beans so it looks either gray or brown gray and serve with chips.
Breads
Moldy Dinner Rolls
For Halloween parties try little dinner rolls and put in enough green food coloring that they look totally molded. Gross looking but good.
Spider Bread
Separate dough into individual rolls. Using floured scissors, cut each roll in two. Cut one part into four long strips (for legs) and lay them across the other part, pinching in the center to get the ends to all stick out the sides. Bake as directed.
You can use the poppy seeds for eyes and the almond slivers for fangs. When I made them I filled the body part with pesto, and sausage and cheese. Anything you’d put in a calzone will work, but be careful it’s not too runny because it’ll leak out.
Main Dishes
Pus Pockets
Sprinkle seasoning into cheese and spoon about a half cup of cheese into each pita. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. until the pitas are browned. Remove from oven and poke a hole in the top of the pita until the cheese oozes out. Dab tomato sauce around cheese and enjoy.
Chuckie’s Upchuck
Whatever leftover vegetables you have in the fridge! (tomatoes, green beans, Mushrooms, cauliflower, etc) Saute onions in the butter. Add everything else and bring it to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes. Serve immediately with a barf bag of course!
Tongues on Toast
Cut each slice of bread into the shape of lips, with a slit in the middle. Cut the bologna into strips that look like tongues. Insert the bologna into the slits in the lips(so it looks like the tongues are hanging out of the mouths). Cover the bread with mustard and broil until the bread is golden brown.
Dead Man’s Meatloaf
Use your favorite recipe, but instead of shaping it into a log shape it into a corpse. Legs together, arms folded across chest. Bake as usual, but before serving, stab the poor guy in the heart and dump ketchup on him. Guaranteed to gross out just about anyone!
Roasted Bat
Stuff a rock Cornish game hen with wild rice mix. Serve half to each guest. Tell them it’s a bat.
Gnarled Witches Fingers
Grease cookie sheet with oil, set aside. Carefully cut chicken breasts partway to create five fingers (the uncut part will be the palm of the hand). Slice them a little crooked for effect. Dust in flour, dip in egg, coat in bread crumbs, broil 5 minutes each side until golden and cooked through. Trim the tips with the olive fingernails and serve on lettuce.
Spidery Witches Brew
Serve black bean soup in half a pumpkin. Make a spider’s web on the top using sour cream dribbled out of a pastry bag or plastic bag with a hole cut in it. After making the spiral, cut through with a knife to make the crosshair web parts.
Meathead
Ok, the latest (and easily most disgusting) version of the Meathead passed it’s test with flying colors.
What you need:
This recipe is rather labor intensive and must be done ahead of time! First, we prepared some red ice (water and food coloring mixture) although green ice or no color at all should work equally as well. We also modified our skull slightly by drilling holes from the internal compartment to the outside of the skull to allow for drainage.
Second, wash the skull completely, making sure that it is clean enough to eat off of (which is what you will be doing). I worked in two sections and put each section into ziplock plastic bags after I was finished. It is important to store everything in the *FREEZER* until maybe an hour before you serve it.
Third, prepare your Jello. I make mine in several pans and make sure it is only 1/4″ thick. When it has set up, you will be slicing it up into 23″ strips which can be layered over the skull sections.
Fourth, cut up your cold cuts. I typically use thin sliced meats and cut them into 2×6″ strips but almost anything will work. If you use ham, the head will look more natural but using turkey looks like a zombie head. You can experiment with other meats and see how they look. Even using a combination of meats looks good.
Fifth, once everything is prepared, take the two halves of skull and pick one to work on. I decided to go all out and grabbed a pair of those spring glasses (the ones with the eyeballs on springs) and cut the eyes out. I washed them and placed them into the eye sockets, which gave the skull a very interesting look. Layer the slices of Jello over the skull and on top of it, layer the sliced meat. The meat will act as a bonding agent to hold the whole mess together. It will probably take 1015 layers of meat to make the head look “natural” and will probably take some practice to get it to look right. Personally, I’ve learned not to put the meat down in any pattern, just to have it crisscross and go any which way.
As each half of the skull is finished, put it into a sealable plastic bag and put it into the freezer. This keeps the meat and Jello cold but keeps the moisture in the meat from freezing solid.
About an hour before serving, remove the pieces from the freezer. Fill the skull with the ice that you had prepared previously and seal the two ends of skull together with more cold cuts. I suggest putting it into the refrigerator to let any ice that had formed in the freezer time to melt. Place it on a platter of lettuce and serve.
The effect it gives is quite interesting. As parts of the Meathead are cut away, both the red Jello are exposed and parts of the skull. The Jello also does melt somewhat and starts to ooze through the meat. As the ice inside the skull melts, it drains through the holes that I previously mentioned and starts to pool on the platter.
I am not responsible for anyone who becomes violently ill trying to eat this concoction.
Worms au Gratin
Worms: 67 oz egg noodles, cooked with 8 oz spaghetti, broken into short pieces
Toss with: 2 T butter or margarine and 1 1/2 cups grated process cheese or cheddar
Place in greased casserole.
Dirt: 2 slices whole wheat bread, toasted, crumbled into tiny crumbs, 1 T butter or margarine, melted and 1/4 ts salt Mix dirt ingredients together, sprinkle over worms.
Place under broiler for 5 minutes.
Finger Sandwiches or “Handwiches”
Spread soft white bread with red colored cream cheese and roll up and squish them lengthwise in your hand. They come out looking like bony fingers. Put cut up olive on tip for the fingernail.
A joke main dish?…
Squirmy Worms
Ingredients:
Directions:
Cook spaghetti until done. Rinse well to separate. Coat well with oil to make it nice and slippery. Put spaghetti in waste basket lined with a plastic bag. Add the grapes and mix well. Cover waste basket with a black and orange cover. Secure tightly. Cut a hole in the center of the cover large enough to put your hand through. Invite Trick or Treaters to dig in for their treats. HAVE FUN.
Desserts
Halloween Worms
Cooking time: ~ 5 min.
Prep time: ~ 15 min., plus overnight chilling
Notes: Use a cleaned 1-quart milk or orange juice carton to hold straws
- In a bowl, combine gelatins.
- Add boiling water; stir until gelatins completely dissolve.
- Chill until lukewarm, about 20 min.
- Meanwhile, gently pull straws to extend to full length; place in tall container.
- Blend cream and food coloring with the lukewarm gelatin mixture.
- Pour into container, filling straws.
- Chill until gelatin is firm, at least 8 hours, or cover and chill up to 2 days.
- Pull straws from container (if using a carton, tear carton away from straws).
- Pull straws apart; run hot tap water for about 2 seconds over 3 to 4 straws at a time.
- Starting at the empty ends, push worms from straws with rolling pin, or use your fingers; lay worms on waxed paper-lined baking sheets.
- Cover and chill until ready to use, at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
- Worms will hold at room temperature up to 2 hours.
Per worm: 17 cal., 42% (7.2 cal. from fat; 0.4 g. protein; 0.8 g fat (0.5 g sat.); 2 g carbo.; 6.8 mg sodium; 3 mg chol.
Makes about 100, including a few casualties.
Swamp Slime
Make green Jello. Put some of it in clear plastic containers and put some aside. When the Jello starts to solidify, add various gummy bugs. Beat the rest of the Jello to a froth and add to the top of the slime. Let set.
Dirt
Put chocolate pudding in clear plastic containers and embed a gummy worm or two. Cover the top of the pudding with crushed chocolate cookie crumbs. It looks good if a worm is peeking out of the dirt.
Wobblie Gobblies
Yield: 4 servings
Spray 2 baking sheets with no stick vegetable spray. Mix the Jello powder and the cornstarch together. Stir in 3/4 cup water and 1/2 cup applesauce. Microwave on high for 5 minutes. (stir after 2-1/2 minutes) Stir again after cooking is complete. Spoon 1 cup of mixture on each of the baking sheets. Refrigerate 20 minutes, or until set. Cut strips of Wobblie Gobblies with sharp knife and pull of baking sheets. Place on lightly greased tray or baking sheets. Store, uncovered at room temperature on lightly greased tray or baking sheets. Makes 4-6 servings.
Lizard’s Eyes
Yield: 16 servings
Heat peanut butter with marshmallows in a large saucepan over low heat until melted. Add green food coloring and mix in. Pour in cereal and stir quickly. Spray 8″ pan with Pam then pour contents into pan. Allow to cool in fridge, then cut into long thin strips, about 1″ x 4″. Cut each raisin in half and stick on one end of each strip to make the lizard’s eyes. Source: Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids
Caramel Apple Crunch
Blend all ingredients with mixer. Serve with apple slices. Tastes like caramel apples, but doesn’t stick to the roof of you mouth or your teeth.
Taffy Apples
Yield: 6 servings
(Use ripe, red eating apples, such as McIntosh or Delicious.)
In heavy saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup and cinnamon candies with 1 cup cold water. Cook over medium heat until sugar and candies are dissolved, but do not boil. Add the food coloring and the cinnamon and bring up to boil. Boil until it reaches 300 F on a candy thermometer. Meanwhile, wash and dry apples, remove stem and insert wooden sticks firmly enough into the apple that you can hold them firmly. Remove syrup from heat when it reaches 300 and dip each apple into syrup. Swirl to coat apple. Place coated apples onto greased cookie sheets to cool and harden. Let stand at room temperature until ready to serve. Makes 6 taffy apples.
Jack-O-Lantern Cookies
Yield: 2 doz. about
Thoroughly cream margarine. Add sugar and blend until light. Add vanilla. Add egg; beat until fluffy. Stir in milk. In another bowl put flour, baking powder and salt; blend with a whisk or a spoon until thoroughly mixed. Gradually add flour mixture to creamed mixture; blend well. Scoop dough out onto plastic wrap, cover with wrap and press down to make a thick, flat round. Chill in refrigerator over-night.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cut batch of dough in half; keep one half in refrigerator while working with the other half. On a well floured surface, using a floured rolling pin, roll dough to between 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch. Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter to make cookies. Place on cookie sheet greased with butter-flavored shortening, if possible (otherwise, regular flavor shortening). Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Cool on wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough. Store in airtight container until you are ready to spread them with frosting and decorate. Spread frosting on cookies; then make Jack-o-lantern faces using colorful small candies or icing gel in a tube. Makes about two dozen cookies.
Yummy Buttercream Frosting
Cream margarine with electric mixer. Add powdered sugar gradually. Add vanilla and 2 1/2 tablespoons milk; blend well. If necessary, add more milk gradually to achieve desired spreading consistency. For Halloween Jack-o-lantern cookies, add red and yellow food coloring to make desired shade of orange.
Ghost Cookies
Melt almond bark following package directions. Dip 2/3 of each cookie in melted candy, shaking gently to remove excess coating. Place on wire rack with waxed paper underneath. For eyes, cut jelly beans in half and place on cookies. Cool completely before removing from rack. Source: Gifts That Taste Good
Fudgy Bat Cookies
Yield: 3 dozen
Use a serrated knife to carefully cut 18 of the cookies into quarters. Save remaining cookies for another use. For each bat, place 2 cookie quarters 1/4″ apart on waxed paper. Repeat with remaining quarters. Melt candy melts. Drop about 1/2 teaspoon of melted candy at center of each bat, connecting cookies. Use a toothpick to smooth melted candy into a uniform circle. Cool completely before removing from waxed paper. Source: Gifts That Taste Good
Taffy Apple Pizza
Yield: 20 servings
Preheat oven to 375. Remove 1/2 cup of cookie dough and reserve for another use. Add flour to remaining dough and knead with hands to combine. Press dough to 14″ circle on the 15 inch baking stone. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until cookie is lightly browned. Let cool for 10 minutes then loosen cookie from the stone. Cool completely. Blend cream cheese, peanut butter, brown sugar and vanilla together until smooth. Spread on cooled cookie. Peel, core and slice apples. Dip apple slices in lemon lime soda to prevent browning. Arrange apple slices on cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Heat caramel topping slightly and drizzle over apples. Sprinkle chopped nuts over pizza. Cut into pieces and serve.
Chocolate Spiders and Webs
Yield: 2 servings
In the top of a double boiler over barely simmering water, stir the chocolate until melted; remove from heat. Let stand over water until chocolate is cool but still fluid, about 10 minutes. Or melt chocolate in microwave. lay pattern on a 12×15-inch baking sheet and cover with waxed paper.
Put chocolate into a pastry bag fitted with 1/4-inch diameter tip or a paper cone; fold top edge down to seal.
Squeeze chocolate out of pastry bag onto waxed paper, tracing spider or web designs that show through from the pattern underneath. If chocolate is too runny to hold lines, let cool a little more. As pan is filled, transfer pattern to another 12×15-inch, cover with waxed paper and continue.
Chill spiders or webs on pan until firm, about 10 minutes. Gently peel paper away from chocolate. Spiders and webs are delicate and melt fast, so handle gently and quickly. If made ahead, arrange in single layers, separated by waxed paper; store airtight in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks. Serve as candy or to top desserts. Makes about 2 dozen spiders or 1 dozen webs.
Spider and Web Pattern.
On a 12×15-inch sheet of light-colored paper, boldly draw at least 1 pattern for spider and web. You can either repeat the pattern as you pipe the chocolate onto the waxed paper, or you can draw a pattern that includes designs for multiple items.
Start with spider legs: draw a half circle that is 1-1/2 inches across. Inside and about 1/4 inch parallel to it, draw another half circle. Back to back to the big half circle, repeat the 2 curved lines; you now have 8 legs. Where the lines curve together, draw a small circle to intersect all 4 lines to make the body. Draw a small circle for the head on top the first circle.
For the web, draw a 4-inch long cross. Draw diagonal lines to bisect the quadrants. Connect these spokes with concentric loops.
Pumpkin Patch
Yield: 6 servings
Combine ingredients in blender and whirl until smooth. Pour into carved out pumpkin to serve. Source: Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids
Frozen Jack-O-Lanterns
Yield: 12 servings
Cut off tops of oranges. Gently hollow out pulp (reserve for another use), leaving a thick shell; hollow out pulp off tops also. Cut Jack-O-Lantern faces into each orange. Pack chocolate ice cream into shells, avoid letting ice cream come out of holes. Cut a hole into top of orange top. Set tops back on, over ice cream, and inset cinnamon stick stem through the hole. Place in freezer for at least 3 hours, or until serving time.
Jack-O-Lantern Candy
Yield: 1 servings
Combine peanut butter and butter in medium bowl. Microwave at High 45-60 seconds till melted. Stir till blended. Gradually add icing sugar and cocoa, alternately with evaporated milk until smoothly blended. Stir in peanut. Chill until firm enough to shape into balls. Color coconut with red and yellow food coloring to desired shade of orange. (Shake coconut and food coloring together in jar with tight lid.) Form spoonfuls (about 1 Tbsp) of chocolate mixture into balls. Roll into coconut and insert small piece of pretzel or licorice into top for stem. Chill well before serving. Store, covered in refrigerator. Make about 2 dozen.
Jack-o-Lantern Frosting
Yield: 6 servings
Place all ingredients except food coloring, into top of double boiler. Beat over simmering water with electric mixer 5-7 minutes or until mixture stands in peaks. Tint frosting orange by using several drops of yellow and red food coloring. (Variation of 7 minutes frosting)
Halloween Frosting
Yield: 1 servings
Cream butter; add part of sugar gradually, blending after each addition. Add remaining sugar, alternately with egg whites then with 2 tablespoons cream until of right consistency to spread. Beat after each addition until smooth. Add vanilla and salt. Divide frosting in two parts. To one part add orange coloring to give an orange shade and spread between layers of cake, reserving about 1/4 for pumpkin decoration. To remaining untinted frosting, add chocolate; then add 4 teaspoons cream until of right consistency to spread. Spread chocolate frosting on top and sides of cake Decorate top with jack-o’-lantern, made of orange-tinted frosting. Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 9″ layers and for decorating.
Wormy Baked Apples
Yield: 6 servings
Core apples from blossom ends, leaving stem ends intact. Mix raisins and walnuts and stuff into cavities of cored apples. Set apples, stems up in a 7×12-inch pan.
In a 1 to 2 quart pan, mix brown sugar, water, butter,cinnamon, and nutmeg; stir over high heat until mixture boils. Pour hot syrup around apples. Bake, uncovered, in 350~ oven, basting occasionally with syrup, until apples are tender when pierced and skin begins to crack, 30 to 35 minutes.
Remove apples from oven; cool in pan at least 10 minutes or let cool to room temperature. Set each apple in a small bowl and spoon syrup around fruit. In the top of each apple, cut a hole large enough for one of the candy worms and tuck one end into each apple, leaving most of the worm dangling. Offer cream to pour over apples. Makes 6 ghastly servings.
Creature Eggs
Ingredients:
– AND –
– OR –
For small creature eggs, use apricot halves instead and double up
Directions:
Put peaches/apricots, cut side down, and syrup in an 8 inch square pan. Add liqueur; cover and chill 6 hours or up to overnight. With an electric mixer, whip cream, sugar and vanilla until cream holds soft peaks. Spoon 1/6 of the cream onto each of 6 salad plates and spread out to form a disk about 4 inches across for ‘egg whites’. With slotted spoon, lift peaches/apricots from syrup and arrange 1 peach or 2 apricots (‘double yolks’), round side up, in the center of cream on each plate to make ‘yolks’. Pour syrup into a small pitcher and offer to pour onto individual portions. Makes 6 servings. MY notes: this is ‘especially’ effective if black plates are used. They really look like sunny-side up eggs! And the Cointreau adds a delightful taste sensation.
Spider Cake
Directions:
Take your average cake mix. Bake it up in 2 metal bowls–1 bigger than the other. One unmolded, cut the bigger one (the “body”) in half, horizontally. CAREFULLY scoop out an adequate cavity in each half. FILL with well-whipped set green Jello, and reattach the halves. Frost black, arrange on serving platter. Use licorice sticks as legs. Use 2 BIG green gumdrops and 6 little ones as eyes. When the cake is cut into, it spurts green goop, just like a real spider when stepped on.
Bleeding Heart Jello
The Preparation:
The heart is made from red Jello with a some evaporated milk added to make it opaque. The blood is honey with red food coloring added. Place the ‘blood’ in a small ziplock plastic bag and submerged in the Jello. I guess you could use any mold for the Jello but a heart shape really looks special.
The Presentation:
A heart shaped mold sits innocently on a platter. When pierced with a sharp knife it oozes blood red sauce. The effect is disgusting , but not bad tasting. When you’ve gathered everyone around for the cutting, be sure to use a fairly sharp knife so it pierces the bag. Also, the best effect is when the center of the heart is pierced, then the knife is twisted. This oozes blood out of the “wound” and looks gross!! If you have a “hearty” crowd that wants to dig in, just remember to remove the bag! (I’ve heard of a Halloween gag, but this is ridiculous!)
Cupcake Rats
Take a toy rubber or plastic mouse/rat and mold pieces of aluminum foil by pressing the foil over the top of the rat, forming a foil cup that has the shape of the rat on the inside, leave the bottom open and pull the toy rat out. Make a bunch of these aluminum rat cups.
Use some additional foil to form legs so the molds sit open side up on a cookie sheet.
Spray the inside of the foil rat molds with nonstick cooking spray and fill with chocolate cake batter following the instructions on the box.
Leaving the molds on the cookie sheet for support, bake the rat cakes in the oven, again follow box instructions, you may find it helps to over bake them a bit.
When finished baking, let cool and pull off the foil mold and trim the bottom of the cupcake rat with a knife so it sits flat.
Use red cake icing in the little squeeze tubes to inject (from the bottom) the insides with a little gooey “blood”, use licorice whips for a tail and red cake decorating beads for eyes.
You usually will only get one rat per mold so make plenty of the foil molds, they’re easy to do.
You can make these into bats by adding wings made from Fruit Roll Ups and leaving off the tail.
Kitty Turds On Bed of Kitty Litter
Very simply, make little chocolate “logs”, like Tootsie Rolls, and serve then in a foil-lined box, on a bed of sugar-dusted Grape Nuts. Make sure the family cat is clearly in evidence.
Dirt Pie
Make or buy a graham cracker crust, either chocolate, vanilla, or plain. Fill it with chocolate pudding and top with Grape Nuts. Gummi worms make a nice finishing touch!
Stained Glass Cookies
Use two different Jack-0-Lantern cookie cutters, one smiling and one not. Take either or both, and make your favorite sugar cookie recipe. Be sure to color it orange!
Make sure that the holes are cleared out when you cut out your pumpkins.
Before baking, crush yellow hard candies (by hand or with coffee bean grinder life savers work well), and fill the eye & mouth holes with the crushed candy.
Bake as directed, and you will end up with a very pretty stained glass effect, and delicious cookies!
Other Good Ideas
- Turn sandwiches into Jack-O-Lanterns! Cut eyes, nose, and mouth into the top layer of bread and let the top layer (preferably much darker–or much lighter–than the bread show through.
- Make edible spiders for Halloween treats: a prune for the body, licorice slivers or stick pretzels for the legs, and two “red-hots” for the eyes,]
- Turn apples into jack-o’-lanterns! Using a sharp knife or razor, carefully cut portions of the skin away to make eyes, nose, and mouth. For a Halloween dessert, make an edible witch’s hat using a large, flat, dark cookie for the brim and an ice-cream sugar cone for the crown. Fill the cone with ice cream even to the rim and center it on top of the cookie. To enhance the illusion, consider giving the top of the cookie, a thin layer of chocolate frosting.
- A plain sour-cream based chip or vegetable dip can quickly be transformed into a delightfully ghoulish Halloween dip by adding a few drops of green food coloring to the dip itself, and then scattering small bits of red and yellow bell pepper across the top.
- Serve fruit salad in a large, hollowed-out, and well-scrubbed pumpkin. Or serve it in a small pumpkins: one for each diner. If desired, paint a jack-o’-lantern on the pumpkin shell.
