Ah, fall. The time of year when you can unashamedly display your fall-inspired tree and all the pumpkin-related decorations you’ve secretly had on hand as soon as Memorial Day ended.
Despite how hot it is in some places, and the sweltering heat index feeling like you’re sitting on the surface of the sun, one way to really embrace the fall season, is spending time with family, especially the kiddos.
Whether it’s the obligatory corn maze or picking out the perfect pumpkin to carve, making some delicious treats can really “fall” it up and give you a reason to bust out that sweater that’s been hanging in your closet for the past few months (even if you end up taking it off 5 minutes later).
I’ve compiled 5 Halloween treats that are sure to get you and the kids excited about going door to door, asking for king sized chocolate bars instead of pennies. And let’s be honest, you don’t want to be the house that gives out pennies on Halloween.
The first Halloween treat is a simple but somewhat healthy one — White Chocolate Dipped BOO-nanas. Who doesn’t like anything dipped in chocolate? The supplies you’ll need to make these ghosts come alive, are:
- Bananas
- White chocolate candy coating
- Black icing
- Lollipop sticks
Once you peel the banana, you can cut it in half to make two ghosts. Next, you’ll insert the stick into the banana where you’ve sliced it
You can go ahead and put the bananas, with the sticks inserted, into the refrigerator to allow them to harden a bit. You shouldn’t need to leave them in there for more than 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, remove the white chocolate candy coating from its packaging, place it into a microwaveable bowl, and put it in the microwave for the amount of time listed on the package.
Once you’ve removed the now melted white chocolate, use a spoon to mix it a few times, to smooth it out any chunks of chocolate or air bubbles there may be.
You can now remove the bananas from the fridge and begin dipping them into the melted chocolate.
When you’ve generously coated the bananas with the white chocolate, you can again place them into the fridge to allow the chocolate to harden. Again, you shouldn’t need to leave the bananas in the fridge for more than 10-15 minutes.
Take the bananas out of the refrigerator and with the black icing, make two circles for the eyes and if you’d like, one circle for the mouth.
There you have it! Your BOO-nanas are complete and ready to eat!
The second recipe is the Rice Kreepy Pumpkins. Ok, so they’re not as “kreepy” as they are cute. For me, Rice Krispies treats are nostalgic of my childhood so I thought this would be a fun one to make with the kids, despite how messy it can get. Sometimes it’s good to get a little messy! The supplies you’ll need, are:
- 1 box of Rice Krispies treats
- Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows
- Yellow food coloring
- Red food coloring
- Reese’s mini peanut butter cups
- Green sugar sprinkles
- Food-safe scissors
Following the instructions on the Rice Krispies treats box, you’ll want to take 3 tbsps of butter and place it into a heated pan, along with 4 cups of mini marshmallows.
Once the butter and marshmallows have been combined and completely melted, this is where you’ll start putting in the yellow and red food coloring to create the orange color for the pumpkins. You can add as much or as little food coloring to achieve the desired shade. You could even make them purple if you wanted to. Whatever the kiddos decide, this treat is sure to be a hit!
Once you’re done adding the food coloring, remove the pan from heat, and pour the Rice Krispies treats in. Be sure to mix until the melted butter/marshmallow is combined with the Rice Krispies treats.
To avoid having the Rice Krispies mixture stick to my hands, I sprayed a little bit of non-stick baking spray onto both of my hands and started to roll them into the shape of a pumpkin.
When you’ve rolled out as many pumpkins as you like, you can use the remaining mini marshmallows to create the pumpkin leaf. I took food-safe scissors and cut the marshmallow diagonally, exposing the inside/really sticky part of the marshmallow. I then rolled the cut marshmallow in green sugar sprinkles to coat it.
Now it’s time to “assemble” our pumpkins! Take one of the mini Reese’s and gently press it down on top of each pumpkin. Next, place the marshmallow leaves next to the mini Reese’s.
You now have completely edible pumpkins!
Now that the kids are hopped up on artificial sugar, let’s take it back to being somewhat healthy with a bit of nature’s sugar and a tiny twist on the candied apple. The third treat is Vampire Teeth. The supplies you’ll need are:
- Salted caramel (any way to incorporate salted caramel, I’m all in!)
- Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows
- Apples
- Knife
After washing the apples, you’ll want to cut them into slices. You can get about 6 or 7 slices from one apple depending on the size of the apple and how thick you cut the slices. I used the odd numbered apple slice to cut out small triangles, which will be the vampire fangs.
Every two slices of apple will be used as the top and bottom of the vampire’s mouth. I then spread salted caramel on the apple slices, which is not only delicious, but acts as an adhesive for the vampire’s fangs and teeth.
To assemble the vampire teeth, you’ll line up the mini marshmallows and insert the apple fangs in between the marshmallows.
And there you have it! Vampire teeth so scary, it’ll make you think of Robert Pattinson or Tom Cruise (Interview with a Vampire, circa 1994).
To kinda segue into a salty sweet treat, the next recipe is Frankenstein Fingers!
This is another easy recipe and if you have white chocolate leftover from the BOO-nanas, you can use it again for this yummy treat. The supplies you’ll need, are:
- White chocolate candy coating
- Pretzel rods
- Green food coloring
- Dry Roasted Shelled Pepitas (aka salted pumpkin seeds)
- Parchment paper
- Baking sheet and/or cooling rack
To melt the white chocolate candy coating, place it into a microwaveable bowl, and put it in the microwave for the amount of time listed on the package.
When the chocolate is melted, add the green food coloring. You can add as much or as little food coloring as you’d like to achieve the shade of green you prefer.
On a baking sheet, with a cooling rack if you’d like, place a sheet of parchment paper on it. After coating the pretzel rods with the melted chocolate, lay them down on the parchment paper to dry. While they’re laying on the parchment paper, place the pumpkin seed at the tip before it completely dries. Now your fingers have fingernails!
These salty sweet snacks are now ready to chow down on!
The last recipe on this crazy Halloween treat-making train are the Halloweenie Cupcakes! Cupcakes are easy to make and allow you and your kids to get super creative.
For this recipe, I took the same ingredients you would use to make a Heath Bar Cake, minus the chopped up Heath bar bits, and made cupcakes out of them. (Side note: If you haven’t tried a Heath Bar Cake, it’s rich, delicious, and probably super bad for you, but we stopped counting calories once fall started, right?)
The Heath Bar Cake recipe actually calls for whipped cream instead of icing or frosting, which I like because icing or frosting can tend to taste really sugary whereas I feel like whipped cream, doesn’t taste as sweet and can break up the sweetness of everything else. The supplies you’ll need, are:
- 1 box of German Chocolate cake mix
- Eggs
- Water
- Vegetable oil
- Cupcake liners
- Cupcake or muffin baking tin
- Fork
- Caramel flavored topping
- Condensed milk
- Oreos
- Milano double dark chocolate cookies
- Cool Whip
- Orange icing (or any color icing you prefer)
- Black icing
- Various sprinkles and sugar sprinkles
- Cupcake toppers (optional)
Following the instructions on the German Chocolate cake mix box, you’ll want to put the cake mix, eggs, water, and vegetable oil into a bowl, then use a mixer or hand mixer to fully combine all of the ingredients together.
Preheat the oven to the temperature listed on the cake mix box. Meanwhile, spoon the combined cake mix into each cupcake liner, filling them up about 2/3 of the way.
Place the baking tray into the oven and allow them to bake for the time recommended on the cake mix box, but keep an eye on it because the cake mix bakes pretty quickly. I always use the toothpick technique to check if the cake or cupcakes are fully baked. When I pull the toothpick out and see that there’s no cake sticking to it, that tells me it’s done.
While the cupcakes are still warm, take a fork and make multiple holes on top of some of the cupcakes. The ones that have fork holes will be the ones that you’ll put caramel and condensed milk on, which will absorb into the cake through the holes.
You can leave the rest of the cupcakes as is, without holes or caramel/condensed milk, and those will be the ones you can decorate with the icing or frosting of your choice.
For the cupcakes with holes and caramel/condensed milk, I spread whipped cream on top. And for the rest of the cupcakes, I put orange icing.
Now comes the fun part — DECORATING!!! This is when you can let your creative side run wild. I used crushed up Oreos as dirt and a Milano cookie as a tombstone; sprinkles for color contrast and as monster eyes and spider eyes; and Meri Meri Halloween-themed cupcake toppers I found at Home Goods (gotta love Home Goods) for a little bit of added spookiness.
These cupcakes are the perfect addition to any Halloween party dessert bar!
I hope you and your kids enjoy making these recipes. Wishing you all a wonderful fall season and a very Happy Halloween!
Written by: Larnna Thompson (@dessertforyoursenses)
Photos by: Larnna Thompson (@dessertforyoursenses)
Photos edited by: Jason Cordoba (@jcordobaphotos)