Hello fellow ghouls! Guess what special day is tomorrow? That’s right, it’s Friday the 13th! Never mind that nothing bad had ever really happens to people on that date. I take note of the date because it gives me an excuse to make something deliciously ghoulish. I mean Hallowe’en is soooo many months away!

This year’s Friday the 13th eyeball cupcakes are for Mr NQN’s colleagues at work. They have all learned the hard way that he is nothing but the naughtiest trickster who delights in playing tricks on them. He will literally turn anything into a chance to play a prank on some unsuspecting soul. A few weeks ago, one of his colleagues was walking down a street in the city when he found a memory card on the ground. Curious, he took it back to work and put it in his computer. In it he saw that there were surveillance files from a government agency.

Nervous, he told a few of his colleagues about it including Mr NQN (big mistake-huge! I hear you say and you’d be right). Mr NQN’s ears grew pointy and his nose long and a cheeky grin spread across his face. He quietly slipped his mobile phone out of his pocket and switched it on silent. Around the corner he texted his colleague with the message.

“We know what you have…”

His colleague was nervy and decided to go for a walk with another workmate, a tall man. Mr NQN saw this and then texted him

“Don’t be alone with tall agents.”

Then unable to resist with more cryptic texts “I know what you did last Summer.”

By now his colleague was on the verge of wetting his pants, seeing possible snipers on every rooftop. That’s when Mr NQN pounced with his last message.

“Orders are to take you out”

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Welcome to my Halloween graveyard!

Happy Hallowe’en my pretties! It’s the Wicked Witch of the East(ern Suburbs) here! Hop onto the end of my broomstick for a personal tour of my very own Hallowe’en party! I promise to lure you into my cottage with all sorts of gruesome, ghastly and frighteningly freaky goods.

I still don’t know what on earth possessed me to make 13 items for this Halloween party. Did I mention that I grossly overcater for these types of events? It seemed like a good idea at the time and I just kept adding things as I discovered them or thought of them. This over eagerness to feed does have its downsides and I found myself on the evening before the night of the party exhausted. Mr NQN had gone out for work drinks and didn’t come home until 10pm where he found me an incoherent mess. All I could wail was “I want my television” (i.e. the laptop) while lying prone on the bed kicking my feet in the air like an upended hedgehog.

Tombstone cookies-one for each guest!

Brain Shots!

Ghost open sandwiches and pumpkin open sandwiches

The next morning I awoke refreshed and glanced at my schedule. You can never keep a good ghoul down and inside me is also a strange mutation of Bree Van Der Kamp and Martha Stewart crossed with Morticia Addams. That day I had to pick up some cupcakes from Sparkle Cupcakery who were giving me some Halloween themed cupcakes for my party in a pumpkin spice flavour. My father had made the little menu cards (so please excuse some of the typos). I was visiting the Party People who were generously loaning me a whole bunch of gorgeously gruesome props and we also had to pick up some last minute items and Mr NQN’s costume. He of course wanted to go as Dexter Morgan.

Dragon’s Eye Devilled Eggs

“Can I go as Dexter?” he asked.

“In the white outfit with the blood spatter?” I asked him.

“No…not really”

“What do you mean then?

“I’ll wear a polo shirt and shorts”

“Nice try”.

Wobbly brain pate anyone?

Baked Brie spiderweb

As for me? I went as Little Red Riding Hood. I’m not quite sure why except that I’ve always wanted a red cape. I was going to wear fangs as I was supposed to be the mutant offspring of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf but the fangs that I bought made me look like I had a severe overbite. Mr NQN was going to come as the wolf except that all of the wolf masks that he tried on were itchy.

I handed out Vampire Cookie Pops to all of my guests-recipe to come!

Medusa’s head. Sing along with me “Isn’t she lovely…”

Witch’s Gingerbread House

I know, I know, Hallowe’en in on the 31st of October but this year, my friend The Second Wife and her fiancee Gravy Beard are getting married that weekend so we decided to have Hallowe’en a bit earlier this year. This meant that you could also use the recipes if you were so ghoulishly inclined. And many of the thirteen recipes here are very easy to do. Of course I don’t include the sanity straining gingerbread house above in that list

Floating Teeth Juice

“Worms in dirt anyone?” I ask as I hand out some delicious proteiny goodness

Or how about some bat wings?

There was food a plenty and all of my nearest and dearest were invited along. Everyone came dressed in costume-I am a costume nazi and if you don’t come in costume, you are banished to the gallows to live in eternity. We spent the evening eating, drinking, talking and playing games including the very fun horror movie version of charades. That’s right, if you come to my Halloween party, you will be subjected to games!

Broken glass shards and blood

All of the food worked a treat except for one item. These were supposed to be Dexter Blood Slides but they didn’t work so they became broken glass shards with blood which Queen Viv loved as they reminded her of toffees at school fetes (except for the blood I presume ).

Sparkle Cupcakery Pumpkin and Spice cupcakes $4.50 each

The Sparkle Cupcakes were an undeniable hit. Lou passed them around and they got an unanimous thumbs up from everyone that tried them. There was actual pumpkin in the cake itself which made it very soft and moist and we may have had a riot on our hands with this half dozen eagerly contested cupcakes!

…or eyeballs?

Anyway, without further ado, here are the recipes, should you wish to indulge your inner vampire! Settle in with a cup of tea or coffee though as this story is the most picture filled NQN story ever! And if you want to see my ghoulishly fabulous guests, scroll down!

So tell me Dear Reader, what would you get dressed up as for Halloween?

Bloody Brain Shots

This is such a seriously brilliant and brain like idea. I got this idea from fellow Halloween afficianado Not Martha who originally saw this recipe on Folkinz. I was amazed at how ingenious it was and used the curdling effect of lime on Baileys. I’m sure this is not what the Baileys people had intended for use of their creme liqueur but I have to say that it works beautifully. I also used the vodka and cranberry and vodka and blood orange that Smirnoff sent me in a cask no less. I used  a little syringe to add to the effect but according to the people at Folkinz the same effect can be had with a straw.

• 2 parts Smirnoff Vodka and Cranberry or Vodka and Blood Orange
• 1 part lime juice
• 1 small bottle of Baileys

1. Mix vodka and cranberry or vodka and blood orange with the lime juice and pour into shot glasses. Using a pipette, small syringe or straw, slowly drop small amount of Baileys into the shot glass to form a brain. It may gather and collect at the bottom of the glass but for the best effect place the droplets of the Baileys towards the edge of a glass. Using a spoon you can gently dislodge it from the bottom and the “brain” will float to the top! Watch your friends grimace and gag at how accurately brainy it looks.

Worms In Dirt

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Hello my pretties! Take my (severed) hand and let me give you a peek into my annual Halloween party. It’s an event that gets me going throughout the year. This month was particularly busy with the Sydney International Food Festival and before I knew it, it was the 20th of October and I hadn’t even sorted out my costume.

Luckily I had been planning this party even before last year’s finished (yes I’m an obsessive kind of person, can you tell?) and I had my menu sorted. I wanted to make different things from last year and I wanted it to be even more grisly than last year. I waited and waited and waited for my oven. It was about a month late and was on the way to me from the nice people at LG. It finally arrived and I can already see that she (and it is a she no doubt) is also something that loves dramatic entrances so we’ll get along just fine. I was set for my baking duties and so I had to get my costume together.

Bloody Brain Pannacotta and Shortbread Witch’s Fingers

I am not one for sewing. In fact the only craft I can muster up is really cooking. So I chose to buy my costume and there was one I had my heart set on, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland (I even had the tiara ready for it). Now that I had my outfit sorted, I needed to turn my attention to the decorations. Places were selling out of their Halloween goodies and whenever I’d walk into a shop, there would be a gaggle of people amongst the Halloween section with adults and kids alike grabbing costumes and decorations.

I wanted to go more ghoulish and squeamish this year so I went with Donna the Dead, the moaning sensor activated animated moaning head. I picked up my charming severed head from The Party People in Sans Souci and discovered a treasure trove of ghoulish goodies. We got to chatting and they agreed to lend me some props for the party including these two charming mummies and a faux bloody brain and severed hand! Mr NQN dressed up as a surgeon gone psychotic and answered the door holding the body parts (he was originally to go as Hannibal Lecter holding a bottle of chianti, fava beans and a liver).

But enough dithering, let me show you the food which is always one of the most important parts to a celebration aside from the company!

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