Halloween Party Food Not Quite Nigella ghastly, ghoulish Halloween Hallowe'en party!

NQN's ghastly, ghoulish Halloween party!

Those that know me know that I adore the macabre and ghoulish. I'll sign up for anything vaguely creepy and Halloween, although barely registering a blip here in Australia, is a holiday I gladly celebrate. I think that for the months of October-December I'd like to be American because of the 3 holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. OK we celebrate Christmas but we miss out of the other two.

Recipe Quick Links

Click here for Sour Bloody Mary Cocktail recipe

Click here for Goblin Pies recipe

Click here for Ghost Cookie recipe.

Click here for Coffin Cookie recipe

Click here for Halloween Ghost Meringue Recipe

Click here for Halloween Blood Clot and Pus Jelly Recipe

Click here for Pumpkin Cheese Dip Recipe

Click here for Slime Soup recipe

Click here for Eyeball Cupcakes recipe

In October I received my Dexter Season 2 DVD and in the set came a tshirt and an evidence pack complete with Crime Scene tape, you know the stuff that they use on US TV to cordon off a crime scene. No matter that the police tape here is reportedly blue and white. I was evilly fondling my precious length of Crime Scene tape, wondering who to play a trick on when I realised that Halloween was coming up and it was a most fitting decoration. I set to work on my invitations, based on the Friday the 13th Cupcakes I made earlier this year and emailed them out to my nearest and dearest.

For the three weeks leading up to Halloween, I scoured websites looking for Halloween themed decorations. The food was easy, I had a list of things I had been dying to make. Apart from the Crime Scene tape which would greet everyone at the front door, I knew to make it a truly fantastic Halloween party I had to do more than that. I purchased bags of decorations from dripping blood patterned tablecloths, skulls, spider webs to drape everywhere, hinged hanging skeletons, mini cauldrons (in which I will serve the slime soup) and ghoul and bleeding hand wall clings. I even had skeletons popping up from behind doorways and monsters grabbing people. I also made pictures with eyes that follow you when you walk past, something surprisingly easy to do with instructions here.

So with 3 of the senses: taste, look and feel sorted, all I needed now was the spooky music to listen to which I purchased a great selection on a CD. I stopped short at making it smell like Halloween (I did consider buying lots of smelly cheese to recreate the smell but decided against it in case people missed the point and thought that our place smelled like that anyway).

There's a reason I love Nigella and that's because she has things such as Blood Clots and Pus and Slime Soup in her cookbooks. Before you turn up your nose, of course it's not really Blood Clots, Pus and Slime but it certainly looks as though it is which is all that counts really. Also Donna Hay had some fantastic ideas for Halloween and I loved the Goblin faced pies, Ghost Meringues and Pumpkin Cheese dip which I accompanied with broomstick breadsticks.

A cocktail had to feature something gruesome of course and the one that my husband first thought up was the Bloody Mary (most appropriate). I served it in a test tube a la The Lock Up (the perfect place for Halloween). I would've loved to have served these standing up in an antique test tube rack but I missed out on one on ebay by minutes as I'd asked my husband to remind me (note to self: don't rely on husbands!). We didn't have a lot of plain Vodka but we did have some rather fantastic Finlandia Grapefruit Vodka, a gift from my friend Em, so we used that and called it a Sour Bloody Mary.

Goblin Pie recipe)

What was vital to me was being able to do things ahead of time as Halloween falls on a Friday so I needed to be able to do plenty ahead of time and the evenings before and assembling everything before the witching hour of 8pm.

My costume was a Corpse Bride (a very popular one this year-apparently one of Barack Obama's daughters is going as Corpse bride too!) and I bought a wedding dress on ebay intending to cut it up to resemble the Corpse Bride's dress not realising that what I actually won was a brand new gorgeous and sumptuous wedding dress that I could not bear to cut into so I left it be, making myself scary with the makeup instead (I bet Chanel never realised that their Jeans de Chanel palette would come in so handy on Halloween).

I knew I had to do special cupcakes and I received a cupcake display stand from Queen Viv so of course I draped the cupcakes in spider's web. Without further ado, welcome to NQN's Ghastly and Gruesome Halloween party!

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Slime Soup

Print Recipe

Despite the name and appearance, this is merely a pea soup which I thought would be perfect for Halloween served in these little black cauldron cups. I can picture a witch stirring a cauldron full of this. A pity that I couldn't have some dry ice giving off an eerie air on top!

Click here for Slime Soup recipe

Pumpkin Cheese Dip with Witches' Broomsticks

This Pumpkin Cheese Dip is one of the tastiest dips you can serve at your Halloween party. This makes 2 whole pumpkins that are easy to prepare and bake with the dip in the whole pumpkin. You can easily halve this and just make one pumpkin but two sometimes makes party sharing and dipping easier.

Click here for Pumpkin Cheese Dip Recipe

Blood Clots and Pus

This Halloween dessert is simplicity itself! It uses packet jelly for an effective looking "Blood clot and Pus" dessert that can be served in a large bowl or individual bowls.

Click here for Halloween Blood Clot and Pus Jelly Recipe

Tarantula Spider Cupcakes

One of the easiest things to do when baking is using clever cupcake wrappers. Slipping them into these laser cut wrappers pretty much takes care of the presentation. When I saw they had a Spider's Web wrapper I knew it called for a visit!

Cupcakes already baked (I used the ones I had made for the Eyeball cupcake although to keep it black you may want to do a mocha mud cupcake recipe here)
Jaffas
Black tube icing with a star tip nozzle
Licorice twists or straps cut into small, thin legs, 8 for each spider
Spider web cupcake wrappers (see here)

Step 1 - Pipe black stars all over the top (to simulate Tarantula fur)

Step 2 - Place licorice legs on each side of the spider radiating out from the centre.

Step 3 - Add two jaffa eyes

Step 4 - Assemble Spider's web cupcake wrappers and slip cupcake into wrapper et viola!

Ghost Meringues

How adorable are these Ghost Meringues for Halloween? These are an effective and very easy Halloween party food. All you need is some egg whites, sugar and silver cachous for the eyes! They can be made ahead of time and you can serve them with cream and "bloody" strawberry sauce for an Eton Mess too.

Click here for Halloween Ghost Meringue Recipe

Coffin and Ghost Cookies

These Ghost and Coffin Cookies are such a classic Halloween cookie. They're easy to make and everyone loves a sugar cookie! I made these ghost cookies in tandem with the Coffin Cookies because I was making white and black royal icing and this combination of two cookies uses both.

Click here for Ghost Cookie recipe. Click here for Coffin Cookie recipe

Sour Bloody Mary

I always enjoy serving a Halloween cocktail and the Bloody Mary cocktail lends itself so aptly to Halloween. This is easy to mix up, you don't really need a shaker, you could certainly just stir all of the ingredients together. The grapefruit vodka lends it a slight puckery flavour but not too sour, despite the name.

Click here for Sour Bloody Mary Cocktail recipe

Some photos with all of my fellow ghouls, ghosts, goblins and witches!