Halloween Baking – No Tricks, Just Treats!

There’s no beating the festivities of Halloween. A time of pumpkin carving, apple bobbing and dressing up. Of superstition, scary stories and — best of all — plenty of sweet treats. If you’re partial to a midnight snack, a fan of themed parties or you’re looking for some baking inspiration, then you’ve come to the right place. From cobweb cookies to ghostly meringues, there’s plenty to keep everyone’s taste buds tingling this season.

Devilishly Delicious Doughnuts

Clearly, you don’t want these to be so scary nobody else will want to eat them… that would be bad. A few googly eyes and spiders’ webs aren’t that scary, though…

Once you’ve baked your doughnuts using a doughnut recipe of your choice in our Mini Doughnut Maker, select your chosen colours of Renshaw Ready-t o-Roll Icing to top them. Using a round cutter that’s a bit bigger than your doughnuts, cut out circles of icing and lay them flat on top. Then, use a nozzle to remove the centres to form the ring shape, and smooth them down the inside and outside edges.

For those frightening finishing touches, pipe on royal icing to create the webs, or add black and white icing blobs to create the googly eyeballs using the same method as above for the cookies.

Creepy Crawly Cookies

If you’re looking for something a little quicker to make (but just as moreish), these creepy crawly cookies will go down an absolute treat.

Start by making your favourite chocolate chip cookies (we know everyone has one!). Once they’ve fully cooled, drizzle your cookies with melted white chocolate to create spider webs. Use melted milk or dark chocolate to pipe the spider legs on, one cookie at a time.

Before the chocolate sets, pop a chocolate cup upside down on top of each cookie to make the spiders’ bodies (we made them in our Chocolate Cup Mould) and then finish off by sticking on some all-the-better-to-see you-with eyes – you can either buy these ready-made (we won’t tell!) or make them yourself by rolling little balls of white icing, squashing them between your fingers, and then adding smaller balls of squashed black icing on top.

Trick or Treat Cakesicles

Cakesicles: wow your friends with these cakey creations

What do you get when you fill a chocolate shell with a delicious mixture of cake and buttercream, and serve it up on a wooden lolly stick? A totally on-trend cakesicle, of course! They’re perfect as party treats, gifts for giving or delicious desserts… and make for a sweet surprise if they were expecting to find ice cream inside.

Step 1 – dark, milk, white?

For maximum ‘I wasn’t expecting that!’ impact, make the shells from either dark, milk or white chocolate (just like a ‘proper’ ice cream). Break 200g of good quality chocolate into pieces, and melt it in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Or you can melt it in a microwave – just pop it in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high for 1 minute, then check. Continue heating, checking every 30 seconds and stirring until it’s melted.

If you fancy making more colourful cakesicles, you can always use chocolate colourings to make them in any shade of the rainbow (and more)! Alternatively, you could always use Candy Melts or Candy Buttons. Whatever you use, allow the melted mixture to cool slightly – the trick is to let it thicken a little so that it coats the mould well.

Step 2 – make up your moulds

Slot a wooden lolly stick through the bottom of each hole in our Silicone Cakesicle Mould. Using a pastry brush, coat the base and sides with a layer of melted chocolate. Don’t make the layer too thick – the chocolate will just run, leaving you with a heavy base and thin, fragile sides. Pop in the fridge to set for about 20 minutes. Once this first layer has set, brush on a second layer and refrigerate again.

Step 3 – fill them up!

Crumble up a 1-egg mix cake, or 6 cupcakes, into a bowl, and combine with 2 tablespoons of buttercream or frosting. Once this has been thoroughly mixed together, push this mixture into the chocolate shells, until level with the top. Brush on another layer of chocolate over the top, making sure to seal the sides, and return to the fridge to set.

Step 4 – Finish them off

Pop your cakesicles out of the mould, releasing the top first and then gently pushing the stick through the mould. Then it’s time for the fun bit! Pipe icing or more melted chocolate over the top, or stick on rainbow-bright sprinkles, popping candy or freeze-dried strawberry pieces… anything you fancy, to make them as scary as you like!

Ghoulish Gingerbread House

Is there anything more tempting than the smell of warm, fresh gingerbread wafting through the air? Hansel and Gretel clearly didn’t think so… If you enjoy a bit of DIY, our ghoulish gingerbread house is the perfect project to see you through this Halloween.

What you’ll need

175g dark muscovado sugar
85g golden syrup
100g butter
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
350g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg, beaten

Making the dough

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6. Put the sugar, syrup and butter in a saucepan and bring to a simmer for 1-2 minutes, stirring until well combined. Then, remove your pan from the hob and leave your sugary concoction to cool for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda. Add the cooled syrup mixture and the egg and stir together. Then, gently knead the mixture in the bowl to form a dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Creating your house

When your dough is ready, take it from out of the fridge and flatten it with a rolling pin, so that it’s about 6mm thick. Using the Gingerbread House Cutter Set, cut out your separate gingerbread house pieces and bake for approximately 12-15 minutes. Once golden, take them out of the oven and set aside to cool.

To form the structure of your haunted house, stick the pieces together (make sure they have completely cooled down first), using royal icing as the ‘glue’.

The finishing touch

Saving the best bit till last, decorate your ghoulish gingerbread house by piping icing (for a particularly gruesome effect, we recommend using purple, orange, black, or green) and sticking on all of your favourite sweets. Once the icing has dried, you may want to use your gingerbread houses as a spooky centrepiece, or of course, you may just want to gobble them all up – both are highly encouraged!

Halloween Meringue Ghosts

Whoooh whooooh’d be scared of ghostly crunchy, creamy little treats? Us, to be honest – we’d swear their eyes followed us around the room, until we solved our case of the spooks… by eating them.

These little ghost meringues are the cutest way to add a little spooky-ness to your party. Get the recipe here.

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Monster Eyeball Cupcakes

Disclaimer: no monsters were harmed in the making of these sweetly spooky cupcakes. But quite a lot of icing (and your fingers, and your faces) will come to a sticky end!

Get the recipe h e re.

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