Halloween is right around the corner, and there's no better way to celebrate it than with some tasty and spooky Halloween desserts. Since it's the spooky season, it is only fair to whip up a few treats that are going to cast a spell on your taste buds. In this guide, you're going to find two Halloween dessert recipes that are going to make your All Hallows' Eve celebration scream with success.
Halloween celebrations are based on ancient Celtic and Medieval traditions. At the festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season, sweets were given to spirits and ancestors.
In medieval Europe, soul cakes were baked to honor the dead. These sweet breads were given to souls in exchange for prayers. The tradition of "souling" influenced modern-day trick-or-treating.
European immigrants brought their sweet dessert traditions to America and adapted Halloween baking recipes into apple and pumpkin pies, candy corn, and Jack-o'-lantern-shaped cookies and cakes.
Modern, delicious Halloween treats include witches' hat cookies, ghostly marshmallow treats, and graveyard dirt pudding. Halloween desserts nowadays have a creative mix of spookiness and sweetness; from the traditional soul cakes to today's modern sweets, and children and adults alike have enjoyed these delightful treats. The rich history that epitomized Halloween has pervaded a wide range of desserts enjoyed globally. These are also easy Halloween dessert ideas that can help you with any last-minute kerfuffles.
Witch Hat Cookies
These are extremely small biscuits resembling a hat, with a pointed brim and ribbons for a tie.
Ingredients:
- 251 gm flour
- 102 gm butter
- 203 gm sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- A pinch of salt
- Black gel icing
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 190°C, and line parchment paper on your baking tray.
- Take a large bowl, and in it, beat sugar, salt and all-purpose flour.
- Then, you have to gradually add softened butter, and mix well so that it gets properly incorporated into the dough.
- Now, crack the eggs into a bowl and add in the vanilla extract. Add this mix to the flour mix and knead again.
- Once the dough is ready, roll it out to a uniform thickness.
- Then, using a round cookie cutter, cut out circles from the dough. Use two sizes for the circles, the smaller one to make the hat, and the bigger one for the rim.
- Now, slice every circle into a semi-circle and bring the edges together to make a cone. Secure the cone on the bigger circle with a bit of water or icing.
- Next, position the cookies on your prepared baking sheet and wait for them to bake for 10 to 12 minutes to turn lightly golden.
- Once the cookies are out of the oven, wait for half an hour to let them cool down to room temperature before you can start decorating.
- Use black gel icing to paint the hat and the band around its base. Use a piece of ribbon to tie around the band.
- That's about it, you can then serve these beautiful treats with a side of refreshing mocktail.
Graveyard Pumpkin Cake Pops
Ingredients:
- 251 gm flour
- 152 gm sugar
- 103 gm canned pumpkin puree
- 2 tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- 121 ml milk
- 3 eggs
- 101 gm butter
- White chocolate chips
- Black gel icing
- Edible dirt
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Then, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, pure pumpkin, baking powder, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, add butter, milk, and eggs, and whisk them vigorously until you are left with a golden runny liquid.
- After that, you are going to mix all the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until everything is well combined and there are no discernable lumps.
- Now, fill equal amounts of the batter in each of the cavities of a mini-muffin tin and bake them for 12-15 minutes, till the tops have slightly cracked and become burnished golden.
- Wait to let them cool completely, and then dip them in melted white chocolate.
- You could use black gel icing to draw a rough outline of a graveyard scene on the cake pop.
You can create your graveyard scene right on top of your dessert table with crushed Oreos and gummy worms. You can also add cherry juice or food coloring into the batters to simulate the look of blood.