Halloween will be here soon – goblins, ghosts and ghoulish fun. It also marks the start of the holiday season, pumpkin patches, and the first sense that winter is coming. Many families celebrate with a party for friends and neighbours.
What works for Halloween baking
The great advantage of Halloween food is that it is supposed to look rough. Wonky, lumpy and slightly sinister are all on-theme, which is not true of any other occasion.
That makes it the best baking event of the year for children and for anyone who is not a confident decorator.
Ideas that look better than the effort involved
Spider web cakes. Chocolate icing with a spiral of white piped on top, then drag a skewer from the centre outward at intervals. Thirty seconds and it looks professional.
Graveyard cake. A tray bake with crushed chocolate biscuit “soil” and shortbread or biscuit headstones pushed in.
Mummy biscuits or sausage rolls, wrapped in strips of pastry or icing with two eyes showing.
Meringue ghosts. Piped blobs with chocolate eyes. Very easy and genuinely effective.
Toffee apples, which are traditional and require no decorating skill.
Severed finger biscuits, shortbread with an almond nail and a smear of jam.
Savoury
People forget this and end up with a table of sugar and children who cannot settle.
Pumpkin soup. Sausages as mummies. Pizza with olive spiders. Vegetable sticks in a hollowed pepper. All easy, all read as Halloween with minimal effort.
Presentation does most of it
A black tablecloth, a few LED candles, some cobweb stretched over the table. The food matters less than the setting, and the setting costs almost nothing.
Serve things in unexpected containers – a hollowed pumpkin as a bowl, jars, cauldrons.
With children
Halloween baking is ideal for involving them. Nothing has to look neat, decorating is the fun part, and the results are eaten rather than judged.
Give each child their own biscuits to decorate rather than a share of a big cake, so nobody is waiting.
Practical notes
Make what you can in advance. Biscuits keep for days; anything with fresh cream does not.
Black food colouring stains everything, including hands and worktops. Use paste rather than liquid, and be prepared.
And label anything with nuts. Halloween parties involve other people’s children.
