You guys know that in this house we will celebrate the opening of an envelope with a huge party – but Halloween is literally bigger than Christmas for us. I always like to create themed food and put on a spread for the family and so here’s some easy Halloween party food ideas we tried this year which looked amazing, tasted good and are super simple to try out at home. We also like to try out some traditional party games like these easy ideas from One life Several Stories but with a “themed” twist.
1. A centrepiece for the table
First things first it’s always good to have a Halloween centre piece – usually this is a birthday cake for us but nanny decided to treat us all with a chocolate pumpkin from Cadbury World and cupcakes topped with some handmade chocolates too. I dressed our table with some sparkly purple and gold fabric instead of a table cloth and put a box underneath to make a raised feature….. and also keep this out of little hands reach so the healthy stuff would be eaten first.
2. vegetable skeleton
In some shape or form the kids always enjoy hummus with all sorts of crudités. I wanted to try out a skeleton/monster type shape I saw on Pinterest and so it’s as simple as chopping it all up and spreading it around on a large enough platter. With a cucumber spine, bell pepper ribs and carrot stick arms this dude made the kids laugh and that’s the main thing.
3. Satsuma pumpkin patch
Our satsumas were peeled and then decorated with a little bit of icing, add a pretzel stick and some pea shoots around the plate made this look like a little pumpkin patch. Too cute to spook!
4. Worm kebabs
Wiggly worms – grapes popped on to skewers with melted chocolate eyes on a bed of salad leaves. This was super simple and went down a treat with Arlo in particular.
5. Cheesy broomsticks
Edible Broomsticks! These broomsticks were a favourite and looked fabulous – again a really simple creating using cheese string type things, long pretzels and chives tied in a knot to add a finishing touch.
6. Frankenstein’s monster
The kids adore fruits and so these little pots went down a treat. Using a pen to decorate a container with a Frankenstein face and then filling them with green grapes made them really come to life. I’ve tried this idea out with different faces and fillings and it always goes down a storm.
7. Lychee Eyeballs
Squishy eyeballs – made from tinned lychees with red food colouring and then a blueberry in place of the pip. These looked suitably disgusting but tasted lovely.
8. Ghost kisses
Ghost face meringues – adding a few spots of black icing to make ghost faces took two minutes and the kids went crazy for these!
9. Mummy juice boxes
Mummified juice – wrapping normal juice cartons with toilet paper and tape, is probably the most easy halloween party food idea. Use Googly eyes and marker pens to add faces. Another really easy idea to try out at home.
To complete our table we added in dishes with other snacks such as popcorn, chips, dips etc and then made sure to add some spooky things in….. a mask around our pretzel jar, eyeballs in the nachos and a few spooky spiders in between.
Arlo literally couldn’t wait to inspect the spread and made sure to take on the role of quality inspector prior to the beginning of the party. This type of food can stay out for the day and the kids can come back to pick as they please. I also served hot food – jacket potatoes, chicken wings and hot dogs so everyone had a substantial meal.
When Arlo and Paloma were literally jumping for joy at the sight of all of the spooky goodies this made everything worthwhile. Hope you guys can try some of these ideas out – let me know how you get on – Tag us on Instagram so we can see you!
Two bonus ideas for you
Mummified sausages
These have been glazed with a mustard and maple syrup mixture and then wrapped with strips of pastry to give that torn bandage effect.
Puff pastry pumpkins
I use a cookie cutter to make shapes from a sheet of ready made puff pastry. With a knife I made some score lines and then we brushed a mixture of food colouring and butter over the shapes before sprinkling with sugar. These make a delicious and light bite which look super cute.
Ghost chocolate
These ghost shapes have been made from white chocolate spread out on to a sheet of grease proof paper. I used a lunchbox lid with a deep set lid as our mould and filled it with milk chocolate as a contrast. Once these were both cooled and set Arlo went crazy with the decorations, drizzling white chocolate, adding sprinkles and placing the eyes on the ghosts. What a ghoulish treat!
