Simple Halloween Sweet Recipes

I’m not the sort of person to suddenly panic and flail at the last minute because I don’t have candy for trick or treating kids. But everyone else here? Always running late and forgetting things. Here’s three piss easy recipes that only need some basic stuff.

Peppermint Ghosties

Approximately 250g of Icing Sugar (the powdered sugar that has the same consistency as cornflour)
2 teaspoons peppermint flavouring
3-5 teaspoons of water
Liquid black food colouring OR cocoa mixed with water to form a loose paste

Really, all you do is mix the icing sugar, peppermint flavouring and water together in a bowl using a metal spoon, adding more and more icing sugar until the mixture forms a dough that’s not at all sticky. You’ll only want a tiny, tiny bit of water. Keep on mixing together, it should clump up on its own.

Once your dough is no longer sticky and can be easily manipulated with your hands, you’ll want to start making little balls out of the dough. They can be as big or small as you like, but the smaller the better.

To make the eyes and mouths, simply put a tiny weeny bit of black food colouring or a mixture of water and cocoa on a cocktail stick or skewer and gently poke it onto the ghosties. Try to use as little as possible so you don’t end up tasting too much cocoa or food colouring,

Chill the ghosties in a fridge. You can serve them in little cupcake holders. Should last forever since it’s just sugar and water but I’d eat them within a week.

Dirt Cake

225g Digestives/Graham Crackers
50g Bourbon Biscuits
185g Oreo Biscuits
100g salted butter
Chocolate sauce
Gummy worms

Separate the cream from the oreo biscuits. You don’t need the cream so you can put it to one side to eat later. Put the biscuits into a plastic food bag and break them all up. You can use a potato masher or a rolling pin to help with this. Throw all the biscuits into a bowl and continue to break up. Ideally you don’t want the biscuits to be identifiable, but you also don’t want dust. A rough mixture.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, then pour it onto the biscuits. Mix well, then slowly add chocolate sauce until the mixture starts to clump together, the same way real dirt does. Now you can throw in your gummy worms. When serving, make sure to leave a few gummy worms visible on top.

Best served with a scoop of ice cream, or with a dollop of whipped cream. Lasts for a week.

Bloodied Sponge Cake

175g caster sugar
175g salted butter
175g flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder (not bicarbonate of soda!)
50g cocoa
Red and black liquid food colouring
You will also need two bowls and two separate spoons for this recipe.

If you have a food processor or an electric hand whisk, throw all the ingredients apart from the cocoa and the food colouring into a bowl and mix until light and fluffy. If you’re working by hand, cream the butter and sugar together before adding the eggs and flour in bit by bit, then add the baking powder last.

Separate the mixture into two bowls. In one bowl, add about half a teaspoon of red food colouring and mix well, until there are no more streaks. In the second bowl, add the cocoa and the black food colouring and again, mix well. Please note that the colours never come out the same as they do in the bottles. You can use food colouring pastes for better results but I haven’t tried them.

Grease a medium sized loaf or cake tin, either using butter, sunflower oil or a cooking spray, then add spoonfuls of each mixture, one at a time, to the tin. Once you’ve used up all the mixture, you’ll want to GENTLY mix  the cake mixture with a skewer or cocktail stick. Too much and the colours will blend together.

Bake in the oven at gas mark 5/190C/375F for 30-40 minutes, checking every 10 minutes. The cake is cooked when you stick a knife in the deepest part and it comes out either completely clean or with standard cake crumbs on it.

The red and black food colouring can be swapped out for pure cocoa and a little bit of beetroot juice if you’re not a fan of food colourings.

Store in a cool, dry place, wrapped up in clingfilm or in an air tight container.

A huge thanks to my sister Lil Skully for help with the photography. And thanks Smeghead for helping us eat all this food.