Your Total Guide To eating & drinking

Halloween Baking

If you're throwing a fancy dress party or just fancy having some fun in the kitchen this Halloween, why not give some of our recipes a try? We promise they're utterly spooktacular!

A great selection of mix-and-match ideas that are as much fun to make as they are to eat.

You'll find scary-but-delicious skeleton gingerbread men, two creepy cupcake recipes and 5 ideas for deathly decoration, there are no tricks here folks, just TREAT TREAT TREATS....

Gingerbread Skeletons

Makes approx 20 large (4 inch) and 40 small (2 inch) biscuits

Gingerbread Biscuits
150g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
70g caster sugar
70g soft dark brown sugar
100g golden syrup
360g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180° (160° fan)
Line 4 baking sheets with greaseproof/baking paper
Melt the butter, sugars and golden syrup in a pan, stirring until smooth and well combined
Sift the flour, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl
Pour the butter mix into the flour mix and bring together
Knead the mixture until it forms a good dough - if it seems too dry you can add a drop of water but be careful not to make it too wet
Roll the dough into a ball, flatten to about 2cm thick, wrap with cling film and refrigerate for 30 mins or so
Once cooled, remove the dough from the fridge and roll out onto a flour dusted surface until it's 5mm thick
Cut out your gingerbread men, divide among the baking sheets and place in the oven to bake - approx 8 mins for mini men and 12 mins for the larger men
Once baked, remove from the baking sheets and allow to cool on wire racks ready for decorating...

Icing

250g icing sugar
2 - 3 tbsp boiling water

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl, mix in the boiling water, then beat until very smooth
Pour the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small writing nozzle - alternatively, use a freezer bag trimmed at one corner to pipe your decorations
Now skeletise those biscuits!
We added faces to ours by piping melted dark chocolate onto the dried icing but they look just as good when left blank
The mini men can also be used as cute cupcake toppers - we added some to Vanilla Cupcakes with piped Vanilla Buttercream

Vanilla Cupcakes

Makes 12

180g unsalted butter, softened
180g caster sugar
180g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
60-80mls milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 180° (160° fan)
Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases
Place all cupcake ingredients into a food processor and mix until well combined
The mixture should be of dropping consistency, so add extra milk if necessary
Spoon the batter into the paper cases so that each one is about two thirds full
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and cooked through
Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack while you prepare the buttercream

If you don’t have a food processor:

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition
Add the vanilla extract and mix through
Gently fold in the flour and add the milk, taking care not to over-mix

Vanilla Buttercream

Enough to frost 24 cupcakes

100g unsalted butter, softened - 250g icing sugar - 1 tbsp milk - 1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter until smooth
Sift in half of the icing sugar and beat until well combined
Sift in the remainder of the icing sugar and beat until very light and fluffy
Add the milk and vanilla extract and beat until smooth
Pipe or spoon onto your finished cupcakes and decorate however you wish
If piping, depending on which nozzle you're using, you might need a larger quantity of the buttercream to cover all of the cakes.

Monster Cupcakes

Use the Vanilla Cupcake and Vanilla Buttercream recipes above, adding green food colouring to half the icing until you get your desired shade
Go crazy decorating the frosted cupcakes with a mixture of monster faces a with a selection of kids sweets - chopping them to size for different features and finishing off with piped melted chocolate for some of the eyes
We used the following for ours: marshmallows, mini marshmallows, strawberry laces, fizzy cola laces, mini jelly beans, smarties and gummy teeth!

Muddy Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 24

225g unsalted butter, softened
400g dark brown soft or dark muscovado sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate, finely chopped
200g plain flour, mixed with 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250ml boiling water

Preheat your oven to 180° (160° fan)
Line 2 x 12-hole muffin tins with paper cases
Melt the dark chocolate and leave to cool slightly
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Pour in the eggs along with the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly
Add in the cooled melted chocolate and gently combine
Fold in spoonfuls of the flour and bicarb alternately with splashes of water until all the ingredients have been added - the batter should be fairly liquid and free of lumps
At this stage it’s easiest to decant the cake-mix into a jug
Pour the batter into the paper cases so that each one is about two thirds full
Bake for 30 minutes until cooked through

N.B. Given the ‘muddy’ nature of these cupcakes you can expect each of them to have a dip in the middle - don’t worry about it, you haven’t done anything wrong!

Chocolate Buttercream

Enough to frost 24 cupcakes

175g dark chocolate, finely chopped - 100g unsalted butter, softened - 250g icing sugar -
1/2 tsp vanilla extract - 100mls milk

Melt the chocolate and leave to cool slightly
Beat the butter until smooth
Sift in half of the icing sugar and beat until well combined
Sift in the remainder of the icing sugar and beat until very light and fluffy
Pour the chocolate into the mixture and mix until combined
Add the milk and vanilla extract and beat until smooth
Pipe or spoon onto your finished cupcakes and decorate however you wish
If piping, depending on which nozzle you're using, you might need a larger quantity of the buttercream to cover all of the cakes.

Ghost Cupcake Toppers

Makes 12

Press 12 round lollies into a block of syrofoam to hold them steady while decorating
Roll out a package of white fondant icing to a thickness of 3mm
Cut 12 x 2inch and 12 x 4inch discs
Wrap each lollipop with a 2inch disc of icing (to hide the lolly colour), then drape each one with a 4inch disc to form a ghost
Add eyes by piping or dotting melted dark chocolate onto the finished ghosts
Stick the ghosts into iced cupcakes

Spider’s Web Cupcake Toppers

Makes 12

Take 12 Chocolate Cupcakes iced with Chocolate Buttercream
Print out our Spider’s Web Template
Line a baking sheet with greaseproof/baking paper sliding the template underneath so that you can see it through the paper
Melt 100g white chocolate and use to fill a piping bag fitted with a small writing nozzle - alternatively, you can use a freezer bag trimmed at one corner to pipe your decorations
Carefully trace the printed webs with the melted chocolate, moving the template after the first 6 so you can use it for the remaining 6 webs
Place the baking sheet in the fridge so that the chocolate can set
Remove from the fridge then gently pop them on top of your cupcakes adding a plastic or gummy spider to each as a creepy finishing touch

Scary Spider Cupcakes

Take some Muddy Chocolate Cupcakes, topping them with a layer of Chocolate Buttercream
Dip each cupcake into a small bowl of chocolate vermicelli and press down gently so that it adheres to the buttercream
Cut mini marshmallows in half and press them in to the icing to form the spider's eyes
Use a skewer or lollipop stick to make 4 holes down each side of the cupcake and insert a cola lace into each one - we used fizzy laces so that our spiders would look more like tarantulas!
Finish off the eyes with a couple of spots of piped melted chocolate

All recipes can be easily doubled or halved to suit your requirements. The biscuits should keep well in an airtight container for up to a week but the cupcakes are best eaten on the day they are made.

If you have a go at any of these recipes, please let us know how you get on. Better still, why not tweet or email us a photo - we'd love to see your Halloween handiwork!