"Surprise!" Bug Cake
This Halloween cake is so ghoulishly creepy that some people couldn't look at it, even eat it but the people that tried it absolutely loved it! This cake is gluten free and dairy free so it's fantastic to anyone with allergies. For the surprise bug cake, double the quantity in this chocolate quinoa cake and bake it in two 20cm/8inch round tins for 60 minutes and cool them in the tin and refrigerate them overnight. The next morning make a triple batch of chocolate coconut frosting (recipe for the chocolate coconut frosting is underneath the chocolate quinoa cake).
Click here for Halloween Bug Cake recipe
Bloody Small Intestines
I absolutely loved making and eating this delicious Halloween pastry! This is so much fun and honestly how could chorizo and cheese ever go wrong? Be sure to make the "intestines" twisty and serve with extra ketchup/tomato sauce. Everyone that stood there cutting this up and eating it looked like zombies. Honestly I could not have been happier...
Click here for Small Intestines Pastry recipe
"Screaming" Bloody Crostata
I promise not all Halloween food is junky or junk adjacent. This Halloween Scream tart is based on a classic Italian jam crostata. The "pasta frolla" or sweet shortcrust pastry is a soft dough and perfect to work with for this tart. If you haven't made pastry before, do start on this one. It's soft and pliable and you don't have to roll it out to fill the tart tin, you just press it in and smooth with a small rolling pin. The scream cut out is so easy too!
Click here for Bloody Scream Crostata recipe
Cabbage Brain
If you have a lot of zombie guests at your Halloween party you'll have to feed them brains but how about trying this cabbage brain? A whole baked cabbage is slow roasted for hours, yes it takes time but it's so delicious. I had no idea whether this would work and in the tradition of the insane, I decided to test it out on the night of my Halloween party! Sometimes things work out and this is one of them.
Click here for Cabbage Brain recipe
Vomiting Stuffed Pumpkin
One of the cleverest ways to incorporate pumpkin into your Halloween party menu is to have a little fun with a Vomiting Pumpkin! You basically take 1 large pumpkin and fill the top with a bowl of delicious rice salad. Then draw a face and cut a hole and have the pumpkin vomiting guacamole (never thought that I'd be writing that sentence on the blog ever....). Serve this with chilli corn chips and watch your guests giggle.
Click here for Vomiting Pumpkin recipe
Ghost Pizzas
I brought these out towards the end of the night, just in case people needed something else savoury to eat. They were just simple tomato based pizzas with mozzarella ghosts cut out on top and olives for eyes.
Serves: 12 people
Degree of difficulty: easy
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes
- 12 mini pizza bases
- 1.5 cups pizza sauce
- 12 slices of mozzarella
- Sliced black olives
- You will also need a ghost cookie cutter
Step 1 - Line two trays with foil or parchment. Spread the pizza sauce on the pizzas and then using ghost cutter, cut out ghost shapes in the mozzarella and place on top. Cut up olive slices finely and add as eyes. Bake in preheated 180C/350F oven for 8 minutes.
Dark Demon Cocktail
Looking for a simple Halloween cocktail? Try this Dark Demon cocktail that looks elegantly gorgeous especially with the blackberries and blueberries floating in it. I used Karma cola which is organic and uses cane sugar.
Click here for Dark Demon cocktail recipe
Moonlight Cupcakes
These Moonlight cupcakes are super cute Halloween cupcakes that are also delicious. The base is a rich chocolatey cupcake. We cut the tops out with a small moon cutter. You then fill the cavity with glorious apricot jam!
Click here for Moonlight Cupcakes recipe
And then on the day...
I could only get the house on Friday night which wasn't ideal but sometimes fate deals you a hand and you have to roll with it. That meant that some friends couldn't make it but it ended up being a great mix of people on the night. One thing about my friends: they are like my readers, they're the best people ever. They will happily talk to everyone and are welcoming so there are no unwelcoming cliques.
Belinda and Mr NQN had kindly taken the day off work to help me prepare for the party. They were beyond amazing. While I was prepping the food, they both decorated the house like ghoulish little fairies. Honestly they were so creative and did a much better job than I ever could.
The first guest to arrive was Julie who changed into her outfit at work. Her altered appearance elicited a scream from a colleague which I would say is a total win. And when the flash went off to take the photo the animated woman with the alien baby went off which is why she is laughing in the second pic! Surprise!
Next is Rebecca and Jason who drove all the way from Canberra! They came as a steam punk couple. Rebecca found most of her outfit at a Vinnies store while Jason joked that he had his whole outfit already (I think he was joking!). They ended up staying the night here in one of the bedrooms and helped us pack up and move out which was very nice of them.
The Wizard arrived next as a monk. If you know how active he is with dating, you'll know how truly ironic that is. And as per his personality he started off trying to ward off the alien baby lady with his cross only to find that he truly had a case of the beer goggles and made out with her. Yo, check her Tinder profile Wizard!
As for Nina and Garth, she came as a skeleton performer based on several things she already had in her wardrobe and did her makeup herself using a youtube video! He came as Batman which is a costume that Nina actually wanted for herself! They probably had to wrestle each other for it knowing them... ;)
My seven year old boyfriend Raffles and his mum Aleney arrived next and he came as a zombie ninja because he is obsessed with Japan and Halloween while she came as Medusa! I think he looks just like a kid version of Heath Ledger as The Joker? Yes? No? Anyway he and Mr NQN bonded and he thought that he was the coolest Sumo wrestler ever.
Belinda had to leave for parental duties in the afternoon and returned as a ghost ship princess. She was so busy with work that week that she wasn't able to get her costume and texted me when we were at The Party People. So I just picked up her outfit and luckily it fit her perfectly!
JY and Ben decided to come as The X Files' Mulder and Scully complete with blow up aliens. And don't ever mess with JY when it comes to a competition. When she heard that we had hidden 48 wrapped chocolates throughout the house she, Ben, Julie, Rebecca and Raffles ended up finding most of them!
Girl Next Door always gets quite creative with her outfits and this year she came as an Adult Colouring In Book complete with textas!
The Wizard's brother The Warlock arrived straight off a plane from Brisbane. The Wizard fooled us by saying that they were coming as a dynamic duo and we thought that we might have two Batmans on our hands for a second!
And then Queen Viv and Miss America arrived as two former foes, now united in adversity and circumstance: Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. For overseas readers that perhaps don't know who they are, they are two recent former Australian Prime Ministers. Apparently it is true when people say that anyone can be Prime Minister such is the swinging door to the post and I'm sure we'll all get our turn ;) Anyway, I was a tad disappointed that Miss America didn't wear Tony's red speedos. As you can see he tried to kiss and make up but Julia was not having it. They'll need more time under the bridge for that. Too soon Tony, too soon.
We started the party at 7:30pm and by 8:30pm everyone had arrived and it was around then that I served "dinner" or the hot food. The house had this wooden trolley so I placed the small intestine burek on it along with the cabbage brain and wheeled it out saying, "We have been busy operating...". I cut up pieces of the burek and people dipped them in the tomato sauce - served out of a kidney dish of course.
Batman aka Garth kept trying to challenge the Sumo wrestler aka Mr NQN to a wrestle. I'm not sure who would win because Garth wrestles as a hobby but he perhaps isn't quite used to as large an opponent. Mr NQN had to get used to his markedly larger frame (he's so thin he needed to stuff a pillow between his costume and stomach to fill it out). "Sit on me!" asked Raffles umpteenth times to Mr NQN who obliged in between being stabbed by his zombie ninja friend.
Usually we play a game of Halloween charades but everyone was talking animatedly that I hated to break up the conversation but next year, we'll have some great games up our sleeve that guests can play. Next year? Yep I've already thought of a next year's Halloween party already! It will be a long 11 months until then...