By Rachel King //
Bakers and Halloween fanatics, assemble! Put your baking skills to the test with these five spooky confections. Not only will you impress your friends with your assortment of desserts, but you will also get everyone feeling excited about Halloween in a fun, creative way. Try pairing these with some creepy cocktails as well for the ultimate party platter combination.
- Cobweb Cupcakes
Cupcakes are some of the easiest desserts to decorate because of their frosting, which can be dyed any color and piped in any way. For this dessert, start by frosting each cupcake with chocolate frosting. Then, pipe a spider web onto each using vanilla icing. And that’s it! While cupcakes themselves are not the easiest to make from scratch, there is a shortcut: Find a box of cake mix, make the batter according to the recipe, and pour it into a lined muffin tin instead of a cake pan. This method will guarantee tasty cupcakes in no time.
- Red Velvet “Eyeball” Cookies
If you feel like you have graduated from the cupcake-decorating stage, try your hand at cookie decorating. Either using a store-bought red velvet mix or making your own cookie dough, round the dough into balls, bake, and let cool. While cooling, whip up some cream cheese frosting to top the red velvet cookies with. Spread a thin layer of it on top of each cookie. Then, on top of the frosting, place a colored candy melt — standard eye colors like blue or green work best. Use some red gel icing from the store to draw little squiggly lines from the outside of the icing toward the candy, but do not connect them. Finally, dot the center of the candy melt with the icing and stick a chocolate chip to it. It may not sound like it, but by the end of these steps, you will have a few very convincing fake eyes.
- Pumpkin Cupcake Cake
Cakes can be hard to make. That’s why cupcake cakes were invented. Using the cupcake-making shortcut from earlier, bake about a dozen or more cupcakes of whatever flavor you enjoy most. Then, use food coloring to dye some buttercream or vanilla frosting orange, and spread the frosting over the cupcakes. Make sure the cupcakes are pushed together in a pumpkin formation before spreading so the frosting overlaps cupcakes. Leave two cupcakes at the top unfrosted. Then, frost them with chocolate frosting to represent the pumpkin stem. If you’re feeling extra creative, use some black icing to draw a jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin cupcake cake.
- Chocolate-Covered Oreos with Orange Drizzle
If you don’t consider yourself much of a baker but still love a good treat, then this recipe is the one for you. All you need are three ingredients: Oreos, chocolate chips, and orange icing. First, melt the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Then, coat the Oreos in the chocolate using two spoons so your hands stay clean. Place the coated Oreos on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and put them in the fridge for a few hours until they harden. Once hardened, remove from the fridge and drizzle the orange icing over top for a tasty and festive midday snack.
- Candy Corn Puppy Chow
Another super easy recipe that can be made any time of year is puppy chow. There are countless different varieties of puppy chow, including traditional, chocolate, and Nutella, just to name a few. Choose any of these recipes for this confection — all of which can be found online — and make it Halloween-themed by simply adding candy corn, Reese’s Pieces, or anything else you can find in your pantry. You can even mix different types of puppy chows. Customize based on your and your guests’ preferences.
The Spread 