Halloween Party Ideas

Five little pumpkins sitting on the gate, the first one said "Oh my it's getting late", the second one said "There are witches in the air", the thrid one said "but we don't care", the forth one said "lets run and run and run" the fifth one said "Isn't Halloween fun!!".... Well Halloween was certainly fun for my two little pumpkins this year!

School had a fabulous Halloween parade for all of Lower School followed by classroom parties all over the Pre-Primary area!  The girls were surrounded by Halloween fever from mid last week through to the weekend.  Here are some cute ideas to use at your next Halloween party.  Most of it comes to life with some thoughtful presentation but a few little treats can make all the difference.

I used a lot of short clear plastic cups which I drew on with black markers, different jack o lantern faces. I used these for both portion control as I was dealing with 5 yr olds (!) and as a cute way to fill the table.  I had orange cheetos in some and had sliced peaches with an orange fork my older daughters classroom as a healthy treat.

Larger plastic cups decorated with black and orange ribbon added some height to the table and I placed dried apricots and cracker mix in others.  A big bowl of candy corns added color as well and the kids thought all their halloweens had come at once!

Rice Krispie Jack-o-lanterns

makes approx 60 pumpkins

Ingredients:

11.5 cups rice bubbles/rice krispies
1 full stick of butter / 113 gm
1 tspn vanilla essence
16oz bag of mini marshmallows
red and yellow food coloring
mini tootsie rolls




Method:

• In a large pan or wok, heat the butter until melted.  
• Add the marshmallows and stir constantly until they melt completely.
• Add the food coloring and vanilla
• Now add the rice bubbles and stir until well combined
• Take off the heat.
• Using mini muffin trays, spoon a good teaspoon of mixture into the muffin tray and mold using the back of the spoon and your fingers, until you get a dense ball. 
• Once in a ball shape, remove and place on a lined baking tray.  Continue until all the mixture is used up
• Then using green icing or a gel cake decorating pen, scribble some green 'leaves' on the top of each pumpkin
• Melt one end of a mini tootsie roll, using a hand stove ignitor (a 'clicker' I call them) and push onto the top of each pumpkin to form the 'stem'
• Using black cake decorating pen or a bag of icing with black food colouring pipe on your jack o lantern faces.

Ghost cupcakes

Using my vanilla cupcake recipe already posted, http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3258279163478692852#editor/target=post;postID=4692017559725332244 make a batch or two of cupcakes, however add red and yellow food colouring to make them orange.  I made these about a week before I needed them and froze them in plastic cupcake trays wrapped in plastic, so I only had to decorate them the day before the party.

• Using rolled white fondant, (found in most cake decorating stores or good supermarkets) roll out your fondant until it is about 2mm (1/8th inch) thick.  Use a circular cookie cutter and cut out as many circles as you have cupcakes.  Roll each circle then into a slight oval shape. 
• Use your index finger to help mold the ghost shape or hang it over a small rounded top bottle if that is easier so you can create the ghost folds.  Allow them to sit on a baking tray until fully dry and hard, about 3-4 hours.  Don't over work them, they're ghosts - they don't have to be perfect.
• Using the same black icing as above or decorating pen, pipe on your little ghost eyes.

Make your preferred frosting or icing, or use a store bought vanilla frosting and pipe on each cupcake enough to cover the top.  When you're ready, sit your ghost on top and display on a tiered cake stand for the best effect.