It’s Halloween and time to up the spooktacular factor in the kitchen. But instead of doing boring green jelly “slime” and witches’ fingers, why not throw a Mexican Day of the Dead party and impress all your friends with your individuality and creativity? Of course it also gives you a great excuse to serve lots of tequila.
The Day of the Dead, which falls on November 1, is a huge deal in Mexico. It celebrates those who have passed away and attempts to lure their spirits back with good times and good food. I’ve decided to do a bit of both – with some recipes for Halloween treats and a large dash of Mexican to keep everyone happy. And why not buy or make some traditional calaca (Mexican for skeleton) masks for your guests to wear? It’ll put them in the party mood. BOO!
Pizza skulls
1 naan bread
1 jar pizza topping sauce
125g mozzarella, grated
2 red onion rings for eye sockets
Black olives for the teeth, nose and cheeks
1 slice salami
1 tbsp sweetcorn and 1 green pepper for eyebrows and flowers on cheeks
1: Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4.
2: Cut the naan bread into a skull shape.
3: Spread a jar of pizza topping sauce over the top and sprinkle with grated mozzarella.
4: Place 2 onion rings for eye sockets and fill the sockets with chopped black olives.
5: Cut a heart shape out of a salami slice to make a nose. Create decorative eyebrows from the sweetcorn
and pepper.
6: Make a flower on each cheek by cutting slices of pepper into petal shapes.
7: Place a sliced black olive on top of the salami and on cheeks.
8: Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins, or until the cheese has melted. Mmmm.
‘Mine is the best’ chilli con carne
We have a running joke in our family that everyone always says their chilli is the best chilli no matter how awful it is. But I’m going to stick my neck out here and say my chilli really is the best…
Serves 6
6 tbsp olive oil
1 kg braising steak, cut into 2cm cubes
2 medium-sized onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
3-4 small dried chillies,
crumbled
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp tomato paste
300ml beef stock
1 tsp salt
400g can chopped tomatoes
400g kidney beans, drained
1 packet ready-made polenta
4 tbsp soured cream
2 tbsp fresh coriander
1: Preheat the oven to 160C/Fan 140C/Gas Mark 3. Heat 4 tbsp of the oil in a heavy pan, and brown the cubes of beef on all sides, a few at a time.
2: Remove the cubes and set aside. Then add the onions and garlic and cook gently until the onion is softened.
3: Add the cumin seeds and chillies, and sizzle for 10 seconds. Then add the powdered cumin, oregano and smoked paprika and fry for 15 secs.
4: Add the tomato paste and fry for about 30 secs. Mix in the beef stock, salt and tomatoes, and add the cubed beef.
5: Cook on a very low heat for 2 hours. Or bake in the oven until the meat is tender.
6: Add the drained beans and heat through over a low heat for 10 mins.
7: Cut the polenta into 1cm wide slices and heat up a griddle. Griddle the polenta pieces on both sides.
8: Serve the chilli over the top of the polenta slices, either on a large serving plate or on individual plates. Add a swirl of soured cream and garnish with chopped coriander.
Margarita cheesecake bites (grown ups only)
Serves 8
8 digestive biscuits, crushed
80g butter, melted
300g cream cheese at room temperature
100g golden caster sugar
Zest of 2 limes
4 tbsp lime juice (approximately 2 limes)
2-4 tbsp tequila
2 tbsp Triple Sec or
Grand Marnier
2 tbsp double cream
2 eggs (at room temperature)
1: Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4.
2: Place digestives in a plastic bag and crush them evenly with a rolling pin.
3: Line a 23cmx23cm baking tin and grease with butter.
4: To make crust: Pour the melted butter into a medium bowl. Stir in the crushed digestives until nicely mixed. Then press gently into the bottom of the greased baking tin.
5: Beat together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add lime zest and juice, tequila, Triple Sec or Grand Marnier and cream. Mix until completely combined. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
6: Pour cream cheese mixture over digestive base and be sure to spread it into the corners. Bake for 25-35 minutes until the centre sets (it should have a very slight jiggle).
7: Allow to cool completely in the tin, then refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Cut into squares and decorate with lime slices.
Day of the Dead tequila cocktail
Serves 2
120ml tequila
120ml pomegranate juice
1 tbsp lime juice + 1/2 lime for edging the glasses
2 tsp golden caster sugar
Pinch of Himayalan pink salt (available in most baking aisles)
Crushed ice
Red or purple edible glitter for edging the glasses
1: Pour all the ingredients, except limes and glitter for edging the glasses, with the ice into a cocktail shaker. Shake very well to mix.
2: If decorating the rims of the glasses with glitter, moisten them with the half lime. Pour salt on to a plate and dip the glass edge in it.
3: Strain mixed cocktail into margarita glasses and serve immediately.
Classic Halloween Party food ideas
Eyeballs in blood
For a super quick and easy but rather gory looking simple sweet treat, squeeze raspberry dessert sauce onto a plate and then drop in these fab chocolate eyeballs – I got mine from Sainsbury’s.
Meringue ghost cakes
10 ready-made fairy cakes
2 large egg whites
100g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1: Preheat oven to 105C/Gas mark 1/4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Have ready a piping bag fitted with a plain tip.
2: In the bowl beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they can form soft peaks. Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.
3: Put the meringue into the piping bag and pipe high mounds of meringue. Carefully place edible silver dragees, or two miniature chocolate chips, into each meringue ghost.
4: Bake the meringues for about 1 to 1.5 hours or until they are dry and crisp to the touch. Turn off the oven, open the door, and leave the meringues in the oven for a couple of hours to dry. Then pop on top of your fairy cakes.
Hot mulled apple juice with shrunken heads
I cannot take the praise for these brilliant little heads! My friend Patsy, who lives in the States, sent me the idea and I just love it. I’ll be using this for the centrepiece of my Halloween table.
For the heads
4-5 apples
20 whole cloves
Lemon juice
Peel and core the apples and then cut them in half through the stem.
Then, using a small sharp knife, carve ghoulish faces into each apple. Next, squeeze lemon juice over the apples to prevent them from turning brown.
Lay face up on a lined baking sheet. Bake in the oven at 100C/Gas mark 1/4 for about an hour and a half, or until they are dry and slightly browned.
Leave to cool then push a clove into each eye socket.
For the drink
2 litres apple juice
Peel of a satsuma orange or clementine
1 cinnamon stick
1: Simmer the apple juice in a large pan with the strips of peel and cinnamon stick for about 5-10 mins until all the flavours have infused. Then pour into a bowl and add your shrunken heads.
Witch’s hair and worms
1 packet of spaghetti
Black and green food colouring
Baby frankfurter sausages
Whole black peppercorns
1: Cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions and then split between two plastic boxes. Stir in a few drops of food colouring into each box. Toss each one with a little oil and then pile into a bowl keeping each colour separate.
2: Take a baby frankfurter sausage and press a couple of peppercorns into them to look like eyes and arrange among the spaghetti. Serve with grated cheese on the side.
Mummies
8 frankfurter sausages
150g ready-rolled puffed pastry
1: Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5. I used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the pastry sheet into 10 squares, then cut each square
into four strips so I ended up with 40 pieces of pastry.
2: Wrap four pieces of pastry around each frankfurter leaving space for the face. About 1cm from one end of each frankfurter, separate “bandages” so the frankfurter shows through for the “face”. Put on a baking tray.
3: Bake for 15 to 17 minutes until light golden brown. Then use mustard or ketchup for the eyes.
Cheesy bleeding fingers
For the fingers
100g grated cheddar cheese
25g soft butter
50g plain flour
1⁄4 tsp baking powder
For the nails
Whole skinless almonds
To serve
Tomato ketchup or chilli sauce
1: Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6. For the fingers, put all of the finger ingredients (not the almonds) into a food processor and blitz until the dough comes together. Wrap in cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
2: Roll out the dough on a floury surface roughly 1cm thick, cut into fingers with a sharp knife and shape. You can have short stubby ones, long spindly witch’s ones or chopped-in-half ones. It’s up to you! Then squidge in the whole almonds to look like nails.
3: Put them on a lined baking sheet and cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Serve drizzled with tomato ketchup or chilli sauce for maximum bloody effect.
Ghostly pizza
This is so, so easy. You can make lots of them if you’re having a big do.
1 packet of ready-rolled puff pastry or pizza dough
1/2 a jar of ready-made pizza sauce
Mozzarella slices
1: Draw a ghostly shape on a piece of paper or card, then lay it on top of the mozzarella. Cut around the shape with sharp, clean scissors.
2: Roll out your dough or pastry and then either cut into individual squares or leave as whole.
3: Spoon the pizza sauce on top and then pop in the oven for as long as the pastry or dough instructions advise – minus five minutes because you will need to add your ghosts at that stage. Let them melt just a little, but not too much or the effect is ruined. Pop in peppercorns as eyes.
Shortbread fingers with blood dip
220g softened butter
120g icing sugar
1 egg
2 tbsps vanilla extract
190g wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
Handful of blanched almonds
Small bowl of your favourite red jam
1: Put the butter and sugar in a bowl then beat until light and fluffy. Next, beat in the egg and vanilla. Mix in the flour and salt. pop in a sandwich bag and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2: Heat the oven to 170c/150C fan/Gas Mark 3. Take the shortbread out of the fridge and make into finger shapes.
3: Push an almond into the end of each finger and then lay them on a baking tray, but not too close together.
4: Bake the shortbreads for between 15 and 20 minutes. Arrange on a plate with the bowl of blood (the jam) in the middle to dip.
Puking pumpkins
All you need is a small pumpkin, a sharp knife and a magic marker. Simply draw a very angry face with a wide open mouth on it, and cut it out. Then place the pumpkin on a piece of board covered in aluminium foil and spread out lots of guacamole or hummus to make it look as if the pumpkin is throwing up! Gross, I know, but it is Halloween. Serve with nachos and crudites. You can do a non-edible version by using the pumpkin innards for the sick.
Spiced Pumpkin Cookies
These lovely, lightly spiced Halloween pumpkin cookies are perfect cut into pumpkin shapes – ideal for freaky festivities. The idea and recipe came from The Cookie Jar by Liz Franklin.
- Makes about 20
- 100g butter, softened
- 60g thick honey
- 150g soft brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 250g plain flour
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
To decorate - 250g ready-to-roll fondant icing
- Orange food colouring gel
- 1 egg white, beaten
- Orange and green writing gels
- A pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter (Amazon has several good ones)
- 2 baking sheets lined with baking parchment
1: Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), gas 4.
2: Put the butter, honey, sugar and egg in a large mixing bowl and beat together until smooth. Add the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda and mix until you have a smooth, stiff dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.
3: a clean, lightly floured work surface, roll the dough into a large rectangle with a thickness of about 3mm. Cut out cookies using the cutter. Bring the trimmed dough together and roll out again to cut as many cookies as possible. Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, leaving a little space for spreading between each one.
4: Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, until golden and firm.
Leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
5: In the meantime, work a little orange food colouring gel into the fondant icing until the colour resembles pumpkin orange. Cut the icing out using the cookie cutter to cover the cookies.
6: Brush the cookies with the beaten egg white and stick an orange icing pumpkin onto each cookie pumpkin, then use the writing gels to add the detail.
7: Leave to set, store between layers of baking parchment in an airtight container or cookie jar and eat within three days.
Pumpkin muffins
Ingredients
- 400g pumpkin flesh
- 200ml Del Rivo orange juice with bits
- 125g Sweetvine sultanas
- 300g The Pantry plain flour
- 250g The Pantry caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon Stonemill salt
- 1 teaspoon The Pantry bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon The Pantry baking powder
- 1 teaspoon Stonemill ground cinnamon
- 50g The Pantry walnut pieces
- 270g jar Bramwells apple sauce
- 3 large eggs
Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas Mark 4.
Chop the pumpkin flesh into pieces and cook in a saucepan with the orange juice for about 10 minutes until soft. Pureé in
a food processor or with a stick blender.
Mix the pumpkin pureé, apple sauce, walnuts and sultanas in a bowl. Mix the dry ingredients – flour, caster sugar, baking powder, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon – in a separate bowl. Whisk the eggs, add to the pumpkin mix, then combine the mixture with the dry ingredients – stirring well.
Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases and divide the mixture – you may have enough to make up to 18 depending on the size of the muffin cases. Bake for 30 minutes, until risen. When fully baked, a skewer inserted into the centre will come out clean.
Goblin Grins
Ingredients
- 5 sugarsnap pea
- 1 red pepper
- A few slivered almonds
Method
Use the tip of a paring knife to cut a slit in the centre of one side of each pea pod (parent’s job). Cut out a tongue shape from the red pepper and insert it into the slit in the pea pod. Finish with a few slivered almonds for teeth.
Green puke with eyeballs
1 packet of green jelly, made up
Red icing
White Maltesers
Black icing
Mush up the jelly in a bowl. Squeeze red icing like veins on to the Maltesers. Make a pupil with the black icing and pop the Maltesers into the jelly.
Source: mirror