In most places it’s half term week so here’s a short selection of recipes that, with your help, your children could easily have a go at. Each of these treats has a spooky feel – just right for Halloween!
Chocolate Ghouls
The first of our recipes is a relatively simple sweet you can make with only a microwave, a bowl and a sandwich bag. Coarsely chop a few ounces of white chocolate into a bowl and microwave until just melted, making a piping bag from the sandwich bag by cutting off a small corner, pour the melted chocolate into the bag and pipe ghosts onto grease proof paper. Leave these to cool and peel away.
Pumpkin Cookies
You should cover a board in rolled sugar cookie dough and using a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter remove the desired number of biscuits and bake according to dough recipe. These should then be iced first with a layer of orange icing and then more detailed black and green icing for facial features and the stem.
Ravioli Spiders
Departing from the sweet counter for a moment we have the Ravioli Spiders, an incredibly simple recipe whose most arduous step will be the supply of some spaghetti sauce. Put the sauces in a squeezy bottle and let your little terror draw out spiders webs on a plate. Use cooked ravioli (preferably spinach for a gross green colour) and orange peppers to create the creature’s legs and body.
Popped Eyes
The beauty of these is that they can be easily distributed as both treats for your own children or fodder for the neighbours’ kids who come knocking at your door. To make, simply take your favourite brand of lollipop and remove their covering, then to create your own covers you’ll need a square of white paper and some paint pens. Decorate the paper with various veins, an iris and pupil, and re-wrap the lollipops. Finish with a red ribbon tied at the base and voila, maximum gross out and minimum cost.
Butterbeer
Unless you’re living in a mountain cave, in which case I’d be curious how you’re reading this, then your kids have likely been gripped at some point in the last decade by Potter-mania. As such, it seems unwise not to include a basic recipe for the wizard’s favoured poison: Butterbeer. It’s actually incredibly simple to make:
For your butterscotch sauce whisk over medium heat: ¼ cup butter, ½ cup dark brown sugar, ½ cup heavy cream, ¼ tsp. salt. Bring the mixture to the boil and let it simmer for five minutes and then, once cool, pour over a scoop of ice cream already in the tankard of your choice. Top the whole thing off with Ginger Ale and there you have it! A pint The Three Broomsticks would be proud to serve.
By Josh Ellison
