A Few Simple Halloween Treats

A Few Simple Halloween Treats

Ok. The decorations are up, the pumpkins are outside waiting to be carved, so now it's time to think about what you'll serve your family and friends during this Halloween season.

Decorated Spice Cookies

Take your usual spice cookie recipe (or get one from a cookbook or do a search online) and decorate them. Using colorful frosting, you can decorate these yummy cookies to look like jack-o'-lanterns. Using a pastry bag fitted with a #2 tip, pipe around the edge of the cookie and outline a jack-o'-lantern's face with icing. Next, fill in the areas using another pastry bag filled with icing of little thinner consistency. (Tip: to make icing thicker, add more powdered sugar; to thin it, add another egg white. (Tip: Buy a few tubes of colored gel in the cake section of your supermarket - these have nice thin tips and there's usually a large assortment of colors.) Spread white frosting on some of the cookies so they'll look like the small white pumpkins you find in the produce department this time of year. You can get more creative and create ghost heads by adding black eyes - raisins, chocolate chips, licorice buttons - just let your imagination run wild. This is a great activity for a kid's party.

Jack-O-Lantern Tartlets

Buy or make mini tarts and fill them with your favorite seasonal filling - pumpkin, pecan or apple are some fall favorites. Bake as usual and let cool. Purchase or make more pie crust pastry and after rolling it out, cut into circles that will fit the top of your tart, about a 3" circle. Place these circles on a lightly greased baking sheet, and chill until very firm - about a half hour. Then, using a sharp knife, cut a jack-o'-lantern face into each circle. Chill the completed faces in the freezer for 15 - 20 minutes. Brush the chilled faces with egg glaze. (To make the glaze, gently beat together an egg yolk and 2 Tbsp. of milk or cream -even water can be used in a pinch. Bake in a 350F oven for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned. Allow to cool and then place each face onto a tart. Serve as usual.

Mini Cupcakes

Bake the tiny cupcakes (or the usual size) in orange or Halloween themed cupcake papers. Decorate with orange frosting to look like mini pumpkins and top with candy corn (look for fancy shapes in the candy section of your supermarket). Frost with white frosting and add eyes to make it look like a ghost head - eyes can be brown M & M's, bits of black licorice, chocolate chips - let your imagination go to work here. Or, tint the frosting with very little green food coloring and frost the cupcakes to make them look like skulls. Again, let you imagination run wild - red gel frosting for blood, tinted coconut for a bit of hair on top of the skull head and so on.