Halloween Treats with Resolve to Make Kids Smile and Warm a Mother’s Heart

I’m a big fan of the holiday season.  I kick it off with Halloween and enjoy every moment of it until January 1^st every year.  Yes, there is a bit of lull in the first few weeks of November, but I manage to keep the spirit alive with plenty of planning.  I won’t deny that for me planning and prepping takes time, I only have a few bits and moments out of my busy days to do it prior to upcoming events and I like to make every event authentic, filled with creative details.

For Halloween I like to do fun and creative activities with my little one a few days prior to October 31^st.  It puts us in the mood and allows us to decorate and create together.  I also use this occasion to come up with little treats that will encourage him to eat healthy. I’m not an absolute ascetic, I balance it out with some indulgent treats.  This year we made banana ghosts, string cheese ghosts, chocolate witch hats, bleeding marshmallow eyes, and I made a chocolate bundt cake into a pumpkin.

Effortless to make treats with the resolve to bring smiles to children and warmth in the hearts of mothers.  Isn’t the alchemy of these foods on the simple moments of our lives amazing!

Banana Ghost

Peel banana and cut in half, allow your children to make a ghost face with Cheerios.  Serve and eat immediately.

String Cheese Ghosts

Feather out half of the string cheese and make eyes and mouth with little pieces black olive.  If you are using this just to decorate and not to eat, you could use whole pepper corn to make the eyes and mouth.

Chocolate Witch Hats

I used Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies, orange cookie icing and Hershey’s Kisses.  Simply turn the cookies over so that the fudge stripe side is down.  Put icing around the hole and let your kids top with the Kisses.  Let the icing settle for 5 minutes.

 Bleeding Marshmallow Eyes

These gory little things have are so sweet to eat.  Place a dried cranberry in the center of each marshmallow.  Press them in and decorate with either red food coloring or you can use a strawberry syrup.  Drizzle around the cranberry to make it appear as blood.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

I got the courage to make this cake after the success of my Black Russian Chocolate Cake the day before.  So, on Halloween day I made a kid friendly version.  I used a basic dark chocolate cake mix with instant pudding and followed the instructions for the cake mix and baked it in a 9” Bundt Pan according to instructions.  Make sure to spray your pan with cooking spray and allow your cake to cool after you take it out of the oven.  You can’t imagine how much this will help.

Topping

Ingredients:

Chocolate Ganache

Ice Cream Cone

Green Cake Icing

Orange Cake Icing

To make the stem for your pumpkin use an ice cream cone and ice it with green cake icing.  Cover the entire cone and put your cone in the freezer for half an hour and it will be a lot easier to handle.

For the Chocolate Ganache I used 6 ounces of dark chocolate chopped up and 6 ounces of milk chocolate chopped up.  In a sauce pan heat up half cup of heavy whipping cream and one tablespoon of butter.  Pour the heated mixture on the chocolate and mix.

Once your cake has cooled and you have turned it over and put it on your cake plate, pour the ganache on your cake.  Let it drizzle all around your cake.  Extra ganache is good for the kids.  Let your ganache settle for about 10 minutes.  Then use your orange icing to create abstract swirls on your cake.  Do as much as you like, simply squeeze the icing down from top to half way down your cake all the way around.  I used some green icing to create leaves and vines.  Then put the iced ice cream cone in the middle of your Bundt.  Voila! You have a creative and yummy pumpkin that the kids will devour.