Cook with the Kids this Halloween

Happy half term for those like me who have the children at home this week after a short and unnerving first term back since lockdown.

Halloween this year is not the same as previous years, we won’t be going to any fun fancy dress parties with friends, we won’t be hosting a spooky dinner for family with the girls in their witches outfits and trick or treating has been regarded as ‘off limits’ too.

Like many others, I’m sick and tired of focusing on the negatives of the situation so instead will be concentrating on the things we can do instead. We can still dress up at home, we can Facetime the family in our Halloween get-ups and take pictures to remember. We can watch some age appropriate scary films – we already have The Adams Family and Corpse Bride under our belt this weekend – any suggestions welcome? And we can do something which we always do, bake and make in the kitchen an array of spooky delights. If you fancy joining in why not try any of the below 9 suggestions.

Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

These Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies use my standard cookie mixture but are decorated to look like monstrous mummies and spooky spiders – they’re fun to make, taste great and look cool too.

Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

Halloween Chocolate Bark

This Halloween Chocolate Bark is so simple but super fun to make with the children and once set and cut into shards, can be placed into cellophane bags and given out as a Halloween gift to family and friends too. Also it’s delicious!

Halloween Chocolate Bark

Halloween Chocolate Bark Shards

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

These Halloween Ghost Cupcakes are just a simple fairy cake (homemade or shop bought) topped with some orange frosting (mine was from B&M) a large marshmallow on each and some Royal Icing cut into circles and some eyes and a mouth added with icing pens.

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

Pumpkin Mac ‘n’ Cheese

A family favourite dish- this Pumpkin Mac ‘n’ Cheese is greatly improved and made a little more balanced with the addition of sweet, roasted pumpkin – a great lunch of dinner for during half term and especially if you have an abundance of pumpkins from the pumpkin patch!

Pumpkin Mac 'n' Cheese

Monster Burgers

This makes for a really fun meal for the kids.

Either make your own burger patties (here’s my steak ones) or buy some from the butchers or supermarket.

Then all you need is some burger buns, olives (for the eyes), sliced Cheddar or Red Leicester which you need to cut into zig zigs for teeth and melt over the cooked burger, some gherkin slices to poke out the front as a big monster tongue and whatever else you love in a burger – lettuce, tomato, sliced red onions and some BBQ sauce in our case! I served with my Healthy Slaw and chips and it went down a treat.

Monster Burgers

Spooky Spider Cookies

Use Oreo cookies, some melted chocolate, mini marshmallows and some lip sweets for make these cute Spooky Spider Cookies.

Spooky Spider Cookies

Mummified Sausage Plait Monster

I made this in the week and Bridget and Beatrice absolutely loved it. It is simple a square of shop-bought puff pastry topped with a 375g pack of sausage meat, flattened right out, and seasoned with a little black pepper. Then take a sharp knife and cut ‘bandages’ out of the edges of the pastry – long, thin slithers. Then simply wrap the ‘bandages’ across the sausage meat, until it’s completely covered up and the pastry has all been used up. Brush all over with beaten egg and place into a hot (200 degree) oven for 35 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Make into the monster by adding a couple of olives on cocktail sticks as eyes, a cornichon as a nose (could be a cut out piece of pepper), some tortilla chips as hair and some zig-zag cut out hard cheese (I used Red Leicester) as pointy teeth.

Here’s how I served it for the girls this week as a quick working-night dinner.

Mummified Sausage Plait Monster

Mummified Sausage Rolls

If you’d rather make smaller scale Sausage Rolls these are absolutely perfect and super easy – an idea I’ve made lots of times since having children and taken from BBC Good Food.

Mummified Sausage Rolls

Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes

These Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes are fun to make and the chocolate ganache makes for a more grown-up appealing taste too whilst the spider and icing topped ones will be fab for the kiddies.

Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes

Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

These Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies use my standard cookie mixture - it's tried and tested and works every time. 

These are fun to make with the children and the below will make about 21-22 cookies, so if you're like me you can leave a batch for the kids to decorate while you do the rest and not worry about the mess. 

They taste great, look great and are just a good activity to do with the children around Halloween.

Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

Here's how:

• 150g salted butter, room temperature
• 85g light brown sugar
• 85g granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 225g plain flour
• 100g milk chocolate chips
• 100g white chocolate chips 
• 1 tbsp milk (may not need)

To decorate Mummy Cookies:

• 150g white chocolate
• Edible candy eyes

To decorate Spider Cookies:

• 6-8 giant chocolate buttons
• Edible candy eyes
• Red icing pen

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and line 3 baking trays with greaseproof paper. 

In a large mixing bowl, place the weighed out butter and the brown and white sugar and cream together with a wooden spoon. Mix it well until it's completely combined. 

Now crack in 1 egg and add the vanilla extract and mix in, then add the plain flour and baking powder and mix until the batter resembles cookie dough and has some movement still to it. If it's a bit too thick add a drop of milk at a time and stir until you're happy with the texture. 

Now add the chocolate chips - I always struggle to find white chocolate chips so instead but a 100g bar and chop into chunks. Mix them in well.

Use a teaspoon at a time to place a ball of the cookie dough onto the tray - there's no need to press down, this will happen naturally in the oven. Leave plenty of space between the cookies - I only put 5-6 on each tray and do batches in the oven. 

Bake for exactly 9 minutes and starting to brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before carefully using a fish slice to remove from the trays and place gently on a wire cooling rack or board to cool. 

Repeat the process until all of the cookies are baked. 

The Spider Cookies:

With the cookies that have just come out of the oven and are piping hot, place a giant chocolate button onto each and gently press down and leave to melt a little. Once this has happened use a cocktail stick or something similar to use the melted chocolate and draw 8 little legs using the melted chocolate. Pop a pair of edible eyes on and draw on a smile with a red icing pen and leave to cool.

Halloween Spider Cookies

The Mummy Cookies:

Break up the white chocolate and place into a heat-proof bowl and place over some just boiled water in a pan on a low heat. Use a wooden spoon to mix the chocolate until it is runny and fully melted. 

Place the cookies onto a chopping board or one of the baking trays with the greaseproof paper to prevent lots of mess. Now take a spoonful of melted white chocolate and simply drizzle over each cookie to resemble the bandages of a mummy. Place the edible onto the cookies, using the melted chocolate as a glue and leave to cool.

Halloween Mummy Cookies

Below are a few more Halloween ideas to make with children:

• Halloween Ghost Cupcakes
• Halloween Chocolate Bark
• Pumpkin Mac 'N' Cheese
• Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes
• Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Cookies
• Halloween Mummified Sausage Rolls

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

These are really easy to make and if you want a super quick fix you could even buy some ready made fairy cakes and simply decorate with the kids, but we do like to make ours. 

My two girls absolutely loved making these - they're really fun and are a great little activity to do during half term in the lead up to Halloween.

Halloween Ghost Cakes

Here's how:

For the cakes:

• 110g caster sugar
• 110g self raising flour
• 110g butter (softened/room temperature)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

To decorate:

• Ready made orange or black Halloween icing/frosting (I bought ours in B&M)
• 1 sheet ready rolled Royal Icing
• 12 large marshmallows
• 1 black icing pen and 1 red, orange or pink (for the mouths)

Firstly pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and line a cupcake tin with 12 cake cases - we used some leftover Halloween ones from last year which I picked up in Poundland no less.

Use the all-in-one method for the cakes, which means add all of the ingredients (self raising flour, caster sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and vanilla extract) into a large mixing bowl and mix with a wooden spoon well until you have a good, combined cake batter.

Now spoon equal amounts into the cake cases, we use the two teaspoon method (spoon with one teaspoon and scrape down into the case with the other). 

Place into the oven for 15 minutes or until risen and golden brown then remove from the oven and allow to cool for 20-30 minutes on a wire rack.

To decorate, add a tablespoon of the ready made icing/frosting to each cupcake then use a palette knife to spread all over the top of the cake, into the edges of the case. 

Now place a marshmallow on top longways (the longest side should be flat to the cake) in the middle of the cake to make the body of the cake.

Now take out the Royal Icing Sheet (if you can't get a sheet, but a block and cut a third off and roll out, and wrap up the remaining Royal Icing which should keep for up to a month). Use a round cookie cutter to cut out x12 rounds big enough to go over the marshmallow with a little to spare. 

Place each icing round on top of the marshmallow and use your hands to pinch it down to the cake icing and form a ghostly appearance. 

Once all of the 'ghosts' are formed you can pipe or ice on the eye dots and a little line for the mouths. Enjoy!

If you fancy making more Halloween treats with the children here are a few other ideas:

• Halloween Chocolate Bark
• Mummified Sausage Rolls
• Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Biscuits
• Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes
• Halloween Biscuits

Halloween Chocolate Bark

This is hardly a recipe - just a good idea for a half term activity with the children with a spooky Halloween theme.

You can use absolutely any sweeties or other items, such as biscuits, pretzels or chocolate buttons, but the jelly sweets look and taste great. 

Halloween Chocolate  Bark

Here's how:

• 400g Milk chocolate (if making for adults, dark chocolate is nice too)
• Selection of Halloween jelly sweets (we had bones, brains, eyeballs, fingers and thumbs!)
• Selection of Halloween or chocolate sprinkles (we used both)
• Selection of chocolate treats (we used Orange Smarties and the Lidl version of M&M's)

Fill and boil a kettle then half fill a small saucepan and place on a low heat.

Break up the milk chocolate and place into a heat-proof bowl and place above the boiling water and allow to melt. Use a wooden spoon to help the chocolate to break down and stir.

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and once fully melted pour the chocolate into the tray and move the tray around to evenly distribute the oozing chocolate.

Now simply place the sweet treats you have all around. My kids absolutely loved doing this bit and you can imagine how many sweets didn't make it to the bark! 

Once complete, leave to cool completely on the kitchen side and once cold, place into the fridge for at least an hour to set. 

Now remove from the tray, place onto a chopping board and cut with a sharp knife into shards of bark. Enjoy!

Cooking with Kids: Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Biscuits

This is a really fun, quick and easy way of getting the kids involved in making some Halloween treats at home.

I use Oreo’s as they’re sturdier than single-layer biscuits, but you could adapt this to whatever round biscuits you have in the house. I also use liquorice sticks as the spider legs, but this could just as easily be cola laces. Equally for eyes, I’ve used mini marshmallows with a little dot of melted chocolate, and for the lips some red jelly lips, but these could both be icing pens otherwise. I serve on a bed of spooky sweets, white chocolate mice, jelly snakes etc.

The below makes 8 spiders.

Here’s how:

• 1 pack original Oreo's
• 200g milk chocolate
• Pack of liquorice sticks
• 16 mini marshmallows
• Red jelly lips sweets 

Firstly cut the liquorice sticks down to quarter size, ensuring you have enough for 8 little legs, per spider - you’ll have 8 in total as a normal pack has 16 biscuits. Set aside.

Place a sheet of baking paper on the side to capture any mess of the assembly of the spiders.

Break up the chocolate into a china bowl and melt over a pan of recently boiled water. Use a wooden spoon to move the chocolate around and encourage it to melt.

Now you need to work fairly quickly at this point. Once fully melted, use a pastry brush to cover one side of 8 of the cookies with the melted chocolate. Bow rearrange the eight spider legs accordingly so they are dangling down, and one part is just pressed down into the soft, melted chocolate; this will act as your glue. Now, take one of the other Oreo's (the ones that were set aside and haven’t had chocolate on them) directly on top of the chocolate coating and legs and press down firmly.

Now brush on some more chocolate on top if the spiders ‘faces’ and assemble the faces. Position the two marshmallow eyes accordingly and press down so they stick into the chocolate, and then do the same with the sweetie lips.

Finally use a skewer or a coctail stick, dip the end into the remaining melted chocolate and touch the middle of the marshmallow eyes for pupils.

Leave to set for half hour then arrange onto spooky sweets, or however you are serving. Enjoy!

Some other ideas for keeping the kids occupied with a Halloween theme can be found below:


Making Mummified Sausage Rolls
Making these simple Chocolate Halloween Iced Biscuits
Make Halloween cards

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits - Cooking with Kids

These biscuits are super simple to make, a fun activity for half term next week in the lead up to Halloween or for any spooky gathering. 

I grabbed a pack of cookie cutters from Poundstretchers which had shapes such as bats, Frankenstein's Monster faces, gravestones, pumpkins and cats, but you could apple the same method to any biscuit. If you only have round cooking cutters, just ice and then write 'RIP' on them or grab some of the Haribo sweeties like I have in the pictures with things such as spiders, bones, skeletons and the like and apply them. The main thing is that this is a really fun thing to do for Halloween with the children.

Bridget absolutely loves cooking and particularly baking anything sweet - this was the first time Beatrice (8 months) got involved in baking too, and enjoyed a little mix with the big spoon plus trying to scoop out the raw biscuit mixture! 

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits

Here's how:

• 125g butter
• 110g caster sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• Flour to dust the worktop and rolling pin

To ice:

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• Few drops of water
• Food colouring (I just used red to make orange for the pumpkins)
• Red icing pen
• Selection of spooky sweeties (I used Haribo)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, then grease and line the baking trays with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg, butter and sugar together with the vanilla extract until combined. Slowly sift in the flour and cocoa, stirring through as you go. Add the milk if the mixture is a little dry. Once satisfied with the dough, cover with cling film and place into the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Remove biscuit dough from the fridge. Lightly dust your worktop space with flour, and rub flour up and down your rolling pin, then use your hands to pull off a small section at a time, and roll out into a thin dough, about 1cm thick. If it's too thin, it'll be very difficult to handle, unless your a very deft baker!

Now use your cookie cutter, to cut out the shapes that you wish to use, and place each shape onto the baking shape. They can be placed close together, but not touching. They shouldn't expand too much in the oven.

Repeat the process until all the dough has been used and the shapes placed onto the baking sheets. Now place into the hot oven and bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to completely cool on the baking sheets before moving.

To ice, you can do so however you wish, and decorate in any manner, we used jelly lips, teeth and fangs for the mouths of the bats and Frankensteins, raisins for eyes, I cut up a dried apricot for the ghost mouths, and once iced, we used spiders, bones and skeleton jellies to make the biscuits as spooky as possible. We wrote RIP on the gravestones in a red icing pen.

To make up relevant icing, you want it quite thick, so take 3 tbsp icing sugar, and just a drop or two of cold water, and stir through, you want it runny enough to pour or brush onto the biscuits, but thick enough to not set 'watery' or opaque. We just used simple plain icing sugar for most of the icing, then added a little drop of red food colouring to make an orange hued icing for the pumpkins. 

Experiment though, and most importantly let the kids enjoy this activity - it doesn't matter if the biscuits are the most beautifully decorated, it only matters that you all enjoyed making them together!

Beatrice's first baking experience

If you're having a Halloween get together or tea party, or just doing a fun and spooky dinner for the kids on 31st October, these easy peasy Mummified Sausage Rolls are a winner too.

Halloween Mumified Sausage Rolls

I copied the idea from BBC Good Food but used ready rolled puff pastry instead of croissant pastry and these went down well at a mini Halloween gathering I held on Saturday evening.

The are a really fun, festive Halloween inspired snack sure to get everyone in the spooky mood and are super simple to make.

Mummified Sausage Rolls for Halloween



Here's how:

• 12 chipolatas 
• 1 sheet ready rolled Puff Pastry (I use Jus Rol)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp English mustard

 

 Firstly pre-heat the oven to 180 and line a baking sheet with some greaseproof paper and set aside. 

 

Place a frying pan on a medium heat and fry off the sausages for 6-7 minutes, to sear all the way over.

 

 Leave the sausages to cool for fifteen-twenty minutes.

 

Now roll the puff pastry out onto the paper its wrapped in, and cut into 12 rectangles - three straight lines down, long-ways, and three across should do it. 

 

Now take each sausage and place into the centre of one of the pastry rectangles, with at least 1cm hanging off the edge, for the Mummy's face.

 

Now use a knife and make incisions all the way along the edges, both sides, to make the 'bandages'. And then 'wrap' each one over the sausage, one side at a time, to look like a bandage and once wrapped place onto the baking sheet.

 

Repeat for each sausage, and then beat an egg and brush over the pastry coat of each, then place into the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and well risen.

 

Leave to cool for ten minutes before serving and before doing so, use a skewer dipped into the mustard to place tiny eyes onto each sausage. Enjoy!