This year I hosted the second edition of my annual Halloween party and humbleness aside, I really perfected my spooky snacks aesthetic. Last year the focus was on candy and drinks, and while there were plenty (not to say too many) drinks this year too, there were some cool dishes that I thought I´d share with you for this #homemadeMonday – maybe you want to do them yourself next year! Read on for a complication of dishes I prepared for the scariest night of an already terrifying 2020. Here goes.
Mummy Hot Dog Starters
The first things to disappear from the table were my mummy hot dogs. I just love both the simplicity and look of them – sausages wrapped in thin sheets of crescent dough, served alongside ketchup or barbecue sauce to give the impression of blood. Ideally served hot, on a board alongside the sauces for the guests to dip them in. After the party I actually noticed that Chrissy Teigen and John Legend had made them for their Halloween party too. And if that doesn´t convince you, maybe this picture will.
Devilled Eggs
An all time party favourite of mine, devilled eggs are super easy to make as they require no cooking other than the boiling of the eggs. Just boil the eggs, halve them, remove the egg yolks and mix them with mayo, mustard and some paté. Stuff the boiled eggs with the paste and add sone creepy spiders on top. Hint: you can make some really cool spiders out of black olives if you have time. Otherwise some plastic spiders from a Chinese store will do just fine.
Creepy Mini Pizzas
Hands down the easiest starter of them all is a mini pizza. Whether you wanna make them yourself or buy frozen ones, they´re a fantastic Halloween snack due to the tomato sauce resembling blood. Add again some spiders on top, either out of olives or plastic and see them disappear within minutes. I made close to 20 of them for the five of us and people loved them.
Banana and Nutella Muffins
Admitted, there´s nothing quite scary about banana and Nutella muffins – other than how scarily delicious they are. But here´s a secret: if you add a little pumpkin or ghost pin to them, they´ll look adorable and totally within the Halloween spirit. I took the recipe from @povesti.aromate´s Instagram and they were honestly the first good muffins I´ve made in my life.
Graveyard Brownies with Jello Shot Worms
As complicated as that sounds, this dish will take half an hour tops for you to make and everyone is going to love it. It actually has two components: the brownie and the jello worms. The brownie alone won´t be scary, but if you stick the jello shot worms in it, your guests will get all the cemetery vibes out there. My friend Sara made the jello worms with rum and they went perfectly well with the final item on the list – the punch.
Dead Man´s Punch
It was a real pickle to figure out how to top last year´s drinks – red cocktails drank out of blood bags. But in hindsight, I think I did pretty well. I opted for a fruit punch (the first one with Bacardi, tonic water and peach nectar – the proportions 1:1:1 and the second one with Havana, tonic water and pineapple juice – proportions also 1:1:1), where I threw in some citrus fruits, plastic eyes and the piece of resistance – an ice hand. The ice hand, not pictured here, was achieved by filling a rubber medicinal glove with water, throwing in some jelly worms and freezing for about 6 hours. After the 6 hours I just cut the glove off and was left with an ice hand which I threw in the punch bowl for maximum effect.
On top of all the above, we served my chestnut and chorizo casserole as a main dish, pumpkin and apple pie as dessert and plenty of sweets – jelly worms and teeth, smarties, ghost bubble gum and nachos served out of skull lanterns. We played drinking games, had a costume contest, danced to Halloween tunes and had balloon fights to the horror of my dogs. Here are some more pictures of us and the set up. I cannot wait to see what I can come up with next year.
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