Tag: Halloween

Coming soon to a serving tray or cake plate near you is the sweet treats-no tricks Halloween goodies sure to tempt and delight.

Flickr

I’ve selected several recipes, ideas, and suggestions for making the Halloween goodies baking process a delicious, easy, and wickedly fun endeavor.

Country Living Magazine

Presentation is key, and the vintage cutouts, bendables, honeycomb decorations, candies, and tin tray spell trick or treat.

Vintage Halloween Tissue Dancers Hanging Decor

I loved our annual Halloween shopping trips to Kmart, TG&Y, and Gibsons for decorations.

Selections were limited compared to today’s offerings, but did the trick.

A honeycomb decoration served as a centerpiece, a bendable scarecrow or warty witch a front door decoration, and two plastic jack-o’-lanterns lights to light the Halloween night and living room windows completed the look.

My mother showed a cake mix who was boss in the original Places In The Home test kitchen.

Rae Dunn Large Mix Mixing Bowl

Her bag of tasty tricks included adding candy bar pieces, flavoring extracts, calorie rich whole milk, and food coloring combinations transformed a store bought cake mix into the taste of homemade.

There’s Halloween goodies magic in a bag of Milano cookies and white chocolate chips.

M’mm M’mm mummy cookies are easy to make with a bag or two of Milano cookies, white chocolate chips, sprinkles, or candy eyes.

Start by placing 2 cups of white chocolate chips and ½ teaspoon shortening  in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 90 seconds.  Stir to incorporate. Microwave in 30 second intervals until chocolate is fully melted.

For extra smooth chocolate, add another ½ teaspoon of shortening to the melted chocolate; stirring well to mix.

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Test kitchen experiment with mint chocolate chips (not a favorite in the Places In The Home test kitchen) proves the times and ingredients accurate.
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Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Place Milano cookies on cookie sheet.

Spoon melted chocolate over the top half of each Milano cookie and allow to set.

Reheat the remaining chocolate for 10 seconds to melt.  Carefully spoon melted chocolate into a resealable plastic bag.   Zip or seal the bag and snip off the bottom corner off the bag.

Drizzle chocolate over each cookie to create the bandage look.  Finish by adding candy eyes or sprinkles for the eyes to each cookie while chocolate is soft.

Refrigerate cookies to allow chocolate to set.

Halloween Graveyard Cake from Country Living Magazine

Milano cookies make excellent tombstones.

Spoon canned frosting in your choice of color into a resealable plastic bag.

Seal or zip the bag and snip off the bottom corner off the bag.

Pipe RIP on top half of a Milano cookie, and that’s it.

These Black Cat Cookies from Good Housekeeping immediately caught my eye.

Granted, there’s several steps included in this recipe, but the finished product makes it worthwhile.

Black Cat Cookies

Ingredients

Basic Sugar Cookies – recipe here

Black Cocoa Cookies – recipe here

Royal Icing – recipe here

Vodka or other clear alcohol (you might need to add a dram or two for the baker!)

Black and silver luster dust

Directions

Prepare cookie doughs as directed.  Use flour-coated circle cutters to cut out circles from sugar cookie dough, and use cocoa-coated cat cutters to cut out cats from black cocoa cookie dough.  Bake as directed and let cool completely.

Use royal icing to decorate sugar cookies and attach cat cookies on top.

Mix a small amount of clear alcohol with silver luster dust and use a paint brush to paint small brushstrokes on the royal icing of the sugar cookies. Repeat with black luster dust to paint bats.

Makes 1 dozen.

-Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen

These witch cupcakes are so ugly they’re darling.

I’m taking baking liberty here by suggesting you make the cupcakes using cake mix.  Where the cake mix calls for water, I use milk for a richer homemade taste.

How to make the witch hats:

Place a wire rack over a baking sheet.  Use a serrated knife to carefully cut 3 in. from the point of the sugar cones.  Place the chocolate wafers on the rack.

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave according to package directions. Spoon the melted chocolate over one cone at a time making sure to evenly cover each cone.

With a spatula, spread the chocolate to cover the wafer, adding more chocolate if necessary.

How to make the frosting:

Using an electric mixer, beat 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, 1 ¼ cup butter (2½ sticks), 1 tsp vanilla and ¼ tsp salt in a bowl until smooth and fluffy.

Tint frosting green by mixing two drops of yellow food coloring with two drops of blue.

How to make the witches:

Spread a small amount of frosting onto each cupcake, top with a doughnut. Frost sides and top of the doughnut.

Place the jelly beans, cut-side down, into the frosting for eyes.

Cut each taffy into 4 pieces, shape each into a nose and place under the eyes.

Pipe the brown frosting ( two drops of red and two drops of green) onto the jelly beans for pupils and over the jelly beans for eyebrows.

Pipe a mouth with the red frosting.

Break the shredded wheat into strands and place on top of each doughnut.

-Woman’s Day

The homemade and the taste of homemade Halloween goodies trick is to treat the eye and the sweet tooth.

This taco soup recipe post is an updated version of last year’s post. It’s that good and worth a second run! Tradition lives on from Halloween to Halloween at our haunted house aka Places In The Home.

Trick or Treat Taco Soup is on the spooktacular supper menu  as per the request of family and friends who have come to expect it over the years.  It is the perfect and easy make ahead soup– one that warms the bones after a day of ghoulish fun and a night of busy trick or treating with the kids and/or handing out Halloween candy.

Trick or Treat Taco Soup

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef

1 onion chopped

1 package taco seasoning mix

1 package dry ranch salad dressing mix

1 8 ounce can tomato sauce

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans whole kernel corn, undrained

2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can Mexican flavored tomatoes

2 ½- 3 cups water

Directions

Brown the ground beef and onion; drain off grease and add dry seasonings. Add the tomato sauce, beans, corn, tomatoes, and water. Bring to a low boil to allow all flavors to blend. Reduce heat and simmer for at least 1 hour.  Serve with corn chips or hot cornbread.  Garnish with sour cream, shredded cheese or green onions.

Trick-or-Treat Taco Soup is the traditional Halloween night meal at Places In The Home.

Easy.

Delicious.

Halloween season crowd pleaser.

Quite the wonderful make the night before dish, trick-or-treat taco soup is the traditional Halloween night supper we’ve long served to the after trick or treating crowd.

Trick-or-Treat taco soup is fantastic the day of, but even better the next day.

Trick-or-Treat Taco Soup

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 package taco seasoning

1 package ranch dressing mix

1 8 ounce can tomato sauce

2 cans pinto beans

2 can whole kernel corn, undrained

2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can Mexican flavored tomatoes

2½-3 cups water

Directions

In a large skillet, brown ground beef and chopped onion.  Drain off grease. Add dry seasonings, stirring to incorporate.  Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer.

Simmer for one (1) hour.   Garnish with shredded cheese, chopped green onions, sliced avocado and/or a dollop of sour cream.

Serve with tortilla chips or hot cornbread.

White chocolate dipped strawberry ghosts-BOOeautiful!

Enjoy, My Little Pretties!