Halloween 2010

Brains, witch broom cookies, chocolate spiders, and Halloween Pie!


This is my Halloween Decorations Table -- Jack, Creepy Tree, Eyeball, Coffin, and Fuzzy Bat get to enjoy the living room once a year.




All of these pictures are out of focus because I accidentally had the camera set on macro the entire weekend. Why I didn't think to check the setting after having significant trouble getting it to auto-focus, I don't know.



While shopping for something entirely different, I bought a brain mould. The first brain I made was marshmallow -- definitely the sturdier of the two. The second, gelatin like the mould's box suggested. In a regular climate, the gelatin brain would have survived longer. Both brains looked gross and awesome!



Halloween Pie was an orange-dyed milktart with a variety of candy and chocolate shapes. I bought a LOT of chocolate and candy moulds for Halloween, and only got to use a few. I did discover semi-sweet chocolate does not set the same way as candy melts or white chocolate, and cracked a mould getting one dark skull out.



Chocolate spiders started vanishing quickly:



I also tried to make bones out of meringue. As with all of my previous meringue experiments, they pretty much failed. The brain-bite cupcakes were a decent success, I think. I made half of them dirty pink and the other half greenish for zombie brains.



The bones didn't look too bad stacked up in a pile, but they were very difficult to pull off the parchment paper and most were gooey, not stiff. On the bottom right, the corner of the pretzels that became witch broom cookies. On the top left, brain mould box.



I also made pumpkin chili, which was delicious!



Happy Hauntings!
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Halloween Decorations

Halloween decorations on the side table.



Rubber bat on the fan puller.
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Watermelon Brain, Chocolate Spiders, Frozen Frog Eggs, and Bloody Teeth

The Halloween brain display from the tray I made for work.



The finished Halloween display. Brain, spiders, jello worms that turned out to be more intestine-like than worm-like, bloody teeth (pomegranate seeds), and some bat and skull rings I swiped from my brother's Halloween party.


Another shot of the brain display.


A watermelon carved into a brain. This watermelon was oblong, so I first chopped it in half. Then I de-rinded it with a large knife, just enough to expose the light green part. The brain-ish pattern was cut with a small knife, exposing the reddish watermelon. It is a good, creepy, delicious Halloween treat. In last year's second brain, I poured semi-solidified, reddish flavored gelatin over the brain so that it sank into the crevices and shined up the exterior.


Chocolate "spiders" made with Chinese snack noodles, melted chocolate chips, and peanut butter. I like using a variety of ingredients in these tasty snacks, but for Halloween spiders I used a simpler recipe:

about 2 tblsp peanut butter
7-8 oz. chocolate (semi-sweet chips)
about 5 oz. chow mein noodles (the whole bag, of a regular bag -- whatever a regular bag is)

Melt chocolate chips, stir in peanut butter, stir in crispy chow mein noodles. It may seem like the melted goodness won't be enough to cover the noodles, but keep stirring. It will be fine. Drop by the spoonful onto wax paper, let set, store in fridge if you're in Miami.


Kiwi, lemon juice, and honey blender concoction, poured into cups with kiwi slices pressed into the bottom and frozen. Mmmmm, tasty frozen frog eggs.


Halloween gelatin and whipped cream pie. It was actually more orange than it looks in the picture. On the side are the pomegranates that became 'bloody teeth.'
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