It’s all about gross but delicious this holiday season. If the food doesn’t look creepy enough then it isn’t Halloween, is it? Think bread roll fingers with red talons, virulent green matcha chocolate truffles with bleeding hearts, morbid boiled egg eyes with green irises, spooky bat-shaped cookies, and cocktails in shocking blues and ominous reds.
Straddling the line between fall and winter and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Thought to have originated mostly from Celtic paganism in the British Isles and their feast of Samhain, Halloween was considered to be the time when ghosts and spirits came out to haunt. And the Celts would appease these spirits by giving them treats.
Ghost pudding
While in the West, Halloween means a time to go trick or treating and scare the bejeezus out of family and friends with elaborate costumes, there’s no reason why we can’t cash in on the trend and indulge in a good bite and appease that monster called hunger. As the world gets set to celebrate Halloween on October 31, it’s time to unleash your creativity in the kitchen for a few spooktacular party snacks — all using natural ingredients, of course.
For starters
Finger food is the most popular go-to snack at most parties. Why should Halloween be any different? Here are a few ideas to get that spook fest started.
Severed fingers: Take a few slices of white bread and flatten out using a rolling pin and set aside. Now make a filling using your favourite mixed vegetables or minced meat sautéed with onions, garlic, seasoning and herbs. Set aside. Spread the flattened slices of bread with some mayonnaise or cream cheese and layer with the filling. Now wrap into a roll, taking care to round off the top. Cut the bottom in a jagged manner to make the rolls look like severed fingers. Use almonds (sliced longitudinally) to make finger nails on the top. Drip some tomato salsa on the jagged edge and your severed fingers are ready to go.
Halloween fun food - Witch fingers almond amaretti cookies for children before baking
Halloween eyes: Boil some eggs and shell them. Cut these in half and place them on a tray flat side down. Now use a straw or bottle cap to cut out a portion from the top to create a hollow. Pipe in some guacamole or mashed and herbed green peas in the centre and top with slices of black olives. Your creepy Halloween eyes are ready. If you want to make them look any spookier, simply use a fine paint brush to slather on a reduction of beetroot juice to give the eyes a bloodshot look.
- For the blood: Use beetroot reduction, tomato salsa, or a reduction of pomegranate and orange juice for the bloody effect.
- Moss or fungus: Stick to good old matcha tea powder, guacamole or avocado or green pea mash.
- For the flesh: Bacon or ham strips are your go-to ingredients here.
- Cobwebs: Cotton candy spins a creepy yarn.
Dig in
Moving on from the appetisers, bring out the big guns with these gory main course recipes.
Bloody intestines: Sounds gross? Rest assured, it tastes rather good. We’re talking about good old spaghetti, of course. Swayampurna Mishra, a food blogger and the brain behind Lapetitchef, loves sticking to natural ingredients to lend food rainbow colours. And this Halloween, she’s considering putting out a luscious spaghetti in beetroot pesto. Simply make a pesto with garlic, almonds, olive oil, boiled beets and vinegar and toss with boiled spaghetti. Garnish with olives and burnt garlic to make it look like bloody intestines spilling onto a plate. And if beetroot pesto isn’t your plate of pasta then stick to good old pasta Bolognese; it will still have the same effect. The trick is in the garnish.
Spook feast Let your imagination run wild this Halloween with severed bread fingers, bat cookies and bloody spaghetti intestines
Swamp monsters: Translate to kofta in a palak gravy. After all, Indian food must figure on the Halloween menu as well. Make malai or meat koftas and dunk in a pureed spinach gravy. Stick some candied cherries as eyes onto the koftas for the swamp monster effect.
- {Serves 6-8}
- Ingredients
- 400 gms milk
- 200 ml low fat cream
- 30 gms cocoa powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 35 gms breakfast oats
- 150 gms dark couverture chocolate, chopped
- 75 gms brown sugar
- 30 gms honey
- Method
- Place all ingredients in a heavy bottom pan and simmer over low heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Once it becomes as thick as a custard, take off heat, allow to cool, then puree with an immersion blender or blend in a food processor until smooth.
- Pour into serving bowls/glasses. Cool and then chill for 4-6 hours, preferably overnight. Then top with chocolate dirt, meringue ghosts, fondant pumpkins etc
- Chocolate dirt
- Ingredients
- 1 packet chocolate oero cookies
- Method
- Process in blender until fine crumb. Alternatively, place in Ziploc and crush with rolling pin until it makes a fine crumb mix.
- Meringue ghosts
- {makes 6-8 meringue ghosts}
- Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- One pinch cream of tartar
- 1/4 cup icing sugar
- Few drops orange extract
- Mini chocolate chips
- Method
- Preheat the oven to 100°F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Place egg white with cream of tartar in a medium bowl. Beat until the white is mousse like. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, and beat on high speed until fir, smooth and glossy. The meringue should hold stiff peaks. Spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle (or cut a ¼” bit off to give you a ½” hole).
- Pipe out little ghosts onto the parchment paper. Place two mini chocolate chips on each for eyes. Bake for about 1 ½ to 2 hours until firm and crisp. Cool completely on cookie tray. Use a required.
Sweet finish
Leave a lasting taste of horror in the final course of your meal, with this visually sinister dessert.
Moss covered rocks: Mishra likes to go with some virulently green matcha chocolate truffles for this one. Simply make (or buy) chocolate truffles with a heart of raspberry buttercream and lay them out on a plate, before topping with some matcha green tea powder for the mossy finish. You could cut a few open for the bleeding heart effect.
Matcha truffles
Witch’s potion
We won’t tie you down with recipes for beverages. But going by Mishra’s suggestions, one can easily stir up some trouble with a range of mocktails and cocktails coloured in disturbing blues and ominous reds. Don’t worry yet. There’s no artificial colouring involved. “My favourite fling at the moment is with ‘aparajita’ or butterfly pea flower. It turns anything a brilliant blue, but magically changes colour to purple, crimson and even ruby red, depending on the amount of acidity added to the liquor. Most fascinating,” she says. And appropriately eerie too, we think.
Here are two recipes by Deeba Rajpal
Dark Chocolate Halloween Pudding
- {Serves 6-8}
- Ingredients
- 400 gms milk
- 200 ml low fat cream
- 30 gms cocoa powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 35 gms breakfast oats
- 150 gms dark couverture chocolate, chopped
- 75 gms brown sugar
- 30 gms honey
- Method
- Place all ingredients in a heavy bottom pan and simmer over low heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Once it becomes as thick as a custard, take off heat, allow to cool, then puree with an immersion blender or blend in a food processor until smooth.
- Pour into serving bowls/glasses. Cool and then chill for 4-6 hours, preferably overnight. Then top with chocolate dirt, meringue ghosts, fondant pumpkins etc
- Chocolate dirt
- Ingredients
- 1 packet chocolate oero cookies
- Method
- Process in blender until fine crumb. Alternatively, place in Ziploc and crush with rolling pin until it makes a fine crumb mix.
- Meringue ghosts
- {makes 6-8 meringue ghosts}
- Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- One pinch cream of tartar
- 1/4 cup icing sugar
- Few drops orange extract
- Mini chocolate chips
- Method
- Preheat the oven to 100°F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Place egg white with cream of tartar in a medium bowl. Beat until the white is mousse like. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, and beat on high speed until fir, smooth and glossy. The meringue should hold stiff peaks. Spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle (or cut a ¼” bit off to give you a ½” hole).
- Pipe out little ghosts onto the parchment paper. Place two mini chocolate chips on each for eyes. Bake for about 1 ½ to 2 hours until firm and crisp. Cool completely on cookie tray. Use a required.
Bat Chocolate Truffle Cookies
- (Makes about 20 bat cookies. Recipe can be halved)
- Ingredients
- 250 gms dark couverture chocolate, finely chopped
- 125 gms single cream
- 1 tbsp honey
- White fondant and silver candy balls for eyes
- {or candy eyes are available on Amazon.in}
- 2 packets Oreo cookies for wings, each cookie halved.
- Method
- Place the chopped chocolate in a large bowl. Heat the cream gently to a simmer (don’t boil) and pour it over the chocolate. Whisk together until the chocolate melts. Whisk in the honey, and then continue to whisk until the chocolate mixture is smooth and glossy. Reserve 2-3 tbsp in a piping bag to act as glue for the wings and eyes. Pipe into mini muffin cases and leave to set in the fridge for three to four hours.
- Assemble
- Glue the cookies on with the reserved chocolate, then glue on the eyes. (Leave out the piping bag at room temperature for a short while to soften it). Leave to set/firm up in the fridge.
