50-Plus Halloween Treats For Grown-ups

Festive drinks and appetizer ideas for Halloween

We’ve scoured the web and our recipe boxes for some seasonal party favourites. Here, a little something to gross-out (we mean please) everyone.

Drinks

– Pick up some pumpkin beer or pumpkin ale at your local beer or liquor store.

– Glow Worm Mocktail — a cold drink made with green camomile tea with lemon-lime soda.

– Ginger McIntosh Mocktail — celebrate apple season with a kick of ginger.

– Ghastly Black Halloween Punch — a creepy black, non-alcoholic punch.

– Dragon’s Blood Punch — the title accurately describes the colour, and this fruity beverage can be made non-alcoholic.

– Glowing Hand of Doom Punch — part punch, part fun decoration.

– Goblin Goo — layered jelly combined with fruit punch looks especially slimy on Halloween.

– Igor-Ade — a swampy looking layered cocktail.

– Hot Raspberry Cider — a twist on apple cider.

Appetizers and Snacks

– Add some blue food colouring to your favourite dip or cottage cheese and call it “Mashed brains”. Serve with plenty of fresh vegetables.

– Salty Bones — bread sticks that look like bones, great for dipping.

– Barbequed Bat Wings — a little dark food colouring in the sauce adds a gruesome colour to this chicken wing recipe.

– Skip ahead a couple of days and bake up a traditional Pan de los Muertos(Bread of the Dead), a traditional Mexican sweet bread shaped like a skull or decorated like bones.

– Chilling Olive Hand — a pair of latex gloves makes a great display for this party favourite.

– Baked Monster Eyes — beef, cheese, sour cream and olives all artfully arranged to look like eyeballs.

– Mildew Nibbles — spinach balls transformed for the occasion.

– Pus Stuffed Peppers — a cheesy appetizer that looks suitably disgusting.

Desserts

– For a low fat dessert, transform scoops of orange sorbet into pumpkins with a garnish of mint leaves and a chocolate candy or piece of black licorice as the stem.

– Instead of caramel apples, try grilling the fruit instead and topping with caramel sauce and chopped walnuts.

– For a party with kids, the fun is in the decorating. Plain cupcakes or cookie cups can be adorned with sweet favourites like candy corn, chocolate and marshmallows.

– Bake cupcakes and arrange side by side on a platter in the rough shape of a skull or ghost and decorate as if it is one cake. (But it’s easy to pull apart and serve).

– Try some pumpkin pudding with cinnamon and cloves.

– Prefer bread pudding? This is sure to satisfty.

– Pumpkin Whoopie Pies — a seasonal take on the traditional filled sandwich.

Ghoulish Garnishes

– Carve radishes into blood-streaked eyeballs.

– Skewer assorted insect-shaped gummy candies on tooth picks.

– Top off a slice of an ordinary dessert or bowl of ice cream with Carmelized Cobwebs and Licorice Spiders.

– Let gummy worms “crawl” around your dessert and appetizer trays.

– Decorate platters with eye-ball printed gumballs or foil wrapped chocolates.

– Make a creepy skewered eyeball garnish from lychee, raspberry jam and a blueberry. (see About.com’s Mad Eye Martini recipe for instructions).