In the weeks leading up to my favorite holiday, Halloween, I like to add some spine-tingling fun to the appetizers, entrees, and even the desserts that I lay on my table.
Introducing the spookiest, scariest, and most sinister Halloween-worthy spread…
For a tray of “horror d’oeuvres” that will send chills down your spine, whip up a dozen of these sinful (aka: delicious as H-E-double hockey sticks) devilled eggs—made fiery red with spicy hot pepper sauce and paprika, and topped with cherry tomato horns and olive eyes and scowls.
Source: Kraft Recipes
This recipe for dead man’s finger sandwiches takes Halloween quite literally! Set your lunch time mood to scream when you serve 5 creepy digits made with thin-sliced white bread, peanut butter, strawberry jam (or sticky blood) and almonds to tip each as nails. Don’t forget to serve with extra blood (strawberry jam).
Source: Parenting.com
Adorable to behold and delectable to eat—these meatball mummies are 3 frozen or homemade meat balls (you can use beef, turkey, or chicken) wrapped snuggly in crisscrossed dough. The recipes calls for a piece of dried spaghetti to keep your meatballs straight and secure…because there’s nothing more frightening than a mummy falling out of his wraps. Dress with edible eyes or make your own eyeballs with a dab of mayo and ketchup.
Source: Spend With Pennies
Watch old-fashioned Halloween candies transform into creepy candy spiders, right before your very eyes! With a flavor and texture similar to Mounds bars, traditional potato candy is made with mashed potatoes, vanilla, coconut, and melted dark chocolate. Use pretzel sticks for spider’s legs and sugar sprinkles for sinister arachnid eyes.
Source: That Skinny Chick Can Bake
This graveyard is alive with the flavors of…cupcakes! It might not seem very scary until you rest your terrified gaze on this tombstone, ghost, and ghoul-ridden graveyard, which uses individual cupcakes to form a flat cake base. The scariest part is that it’s eaten knife-free, encouraging little goblins to leave a carnage of marshmallows, frosting, cookie crumbs, lollypops, and licorice whips in their wake.
Source: Food Network
For a gruesome take on a classic comfort meal, try your hand at a cheese-infused meat loaf, made with ketchup (blood), a whole onion (wrist bone), and onion pieces (for nails). You’ll require a hand-shaped gelatin mold to shape your raw meat blend, then bake, and set on a tray surrounded by mashed potatoes and kale (brain matter), and ketchup (for more blood).
Source: Not Martha
Oh potato—what big eyes you have! Oh potato…what big teeth you have! Spuds never looked so fierce, but these monster mash potatoes turn the plain old boring side into a spine-chilling face by piercing, mashing, and exposing the flesh and arranging green pepper triangles as teeth, black olives for eyes, chives for wild hair, and ketchup for a bit of blood spatter.
Source: Curious Cuisiniere
If you’d like to serve up a truly tasty yet terrifying bread basket, these shrieking goblin flatbreads will certainly set your guests on cackle mode. Simply rolled with store-bought white or whole-wheat pizza dough, brushed with extra-virgin olive oil, sprinkled with salt, and baked until “ghoul-den” brown in the oven.
Source: Martha Stewart
These holiday-inspired stuffed peppers will tempt the ghouls and goblins to your table in their finest Halloween garb. Simply core, seed, and carve jack-o-lantern faces into orange, yellow, and red bell peppers and fill with a mixture of seasoned ground meat, chopped onion, garlic, rice, and tomato sauce.
Source: Citronlimette.com
And now for a Halloween dessert that you can really sink your teeth into—take a big bite out of Dracula’s dentures, in other words a row of mini marshmallows, red frosting, and slivered almonds sandwiched between 2 chocolate chip cookie halves.
Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything
Mmmmm brains! Treat your guests to a cerebral appetizer experience that they will never forget. In fact, they may have nightmares about this gory, molded shrimp cocktail for years to come. Just be sure to arrange your shrimp (tails intact) in layers with the round backs facing out. Line the outer edge with roasted red pepper strips (or blood vessels), chill to set, and dig in!
Source: BHG.com
Your guests will go batty over these pastrami, cream cheese, and horseradish infused appetizers. They really do have wings—or rather they will seem like they do when they disappear out of thin air with echoes of crunching and lip-smacking filling the air.
Source: Joann.com
These mini mummy Bundt cakes are far from scary when you consider they’re made with your choice of hot chocolate milk. You can even take the real evils out of Halloween (high fructose corn syrup and bovine growth hormones) when you choose to bake up a batch using nutrient rich TruMoo or chocolate almond milk.
Source: Hip Foodie Mom
