5 Ways to Make Spooky Meals
If you spend any time searching for Halloween food on Instagram or Pinterest, you will find a cornucopia of ideas for spooky meals. Sometimes, however, these recipes and designs require far more skill than the average person possesses. Or, they at least take a lot more time and effort than makes sense for an every day meal.
Custom Wedding Cake by Dessert Deli. Photography by Knight Studio. This took hours to make and years of practice to get it to look (and taste) that good.
Not all of us can be Martha Stewarts or Christine McConnells, but there are many easy ways to transform ordinary breakfasts, lunches, and dinners into spooky meals the whole family will enjoy.
Here are some of my favorite easy techniques to add some Halloween-flair to your foods:
1. Use Skull Baking Pans
One way to add some spookiness to your meals is to use pans with Halloween shapes. Since you have to use pans to make cakes, cornbread, cupcakes, muffins, etc., it is quite easy to switch out a plain square or circular pan for a skull-shaped pan. There are different sizes of pans you can use, from mini skulls to larger ones (like pictured above). Other common Halloween shapes include ghosts, tombstones, and pumpkins. Have fun shopping around during the Halloween season and you can pick up great tools to use all year long!
I used the NordicWare “Haunted Skull Cakelet Pan” for the above-pictured cornbread. Be sure to generously spray or grease the pan and the bread pops out quite easily.
2. Add Halloween Sprinkles
Aside from flour, rice, and sugar, one staple of my pantry is Halloween sprinkles. I am a sprinkle addict and can’t help but to add these sugary toppers to all my desserts and sweet foods. Whether you choose traditional sprinkles in orange and black or specialty shapes like leaves, bats, bones, or pumpkins, sprinkles can add a touch of Halloween to any dessert. I also use them for hot cocoa and smoothie toppers (along with ample amounts of whipped cream).
3. Turn Your Mushrooms into Skulls
Mushrooms have the perfect shape to carve out some Tim Burton-esque skulls. All it takes to do this is a knife and two fondant tools. I use the “Large Ball” and “Flower Leaf Shaper” fondant tools to carve the face.
HOW TO CARVE A MUSHROOM SKULL
- Cut the mushrooms in half. Lay the mushrooms flat on a cutting board. Use the knife to cut 3-4 vertical strips on the stems (it is fine if the knife goes all the way through here). Gently make a thin slit horizontally across the vertical strips – do not cut all the way through, only cut halfway or less. These lines are the teeth.
- Using a flower leaf fondant shaper, dig two little holes for the nostrils. Just pressing down lightly with the tip of the tool generally will suffice.
- Using a large ball fondant tool press down on the head of the mushroom to create the eyes. Push down very gently. Sometimes you have to press then release a few times to get the proper indent. If you press too hard, the mushroom will split. Split mushrooms are still salvageable, but they look more like decomposing skulls instead of fresh ones!
These mushrooms can be used in soups, pizzas, salads, and more.
4. Use Cookie Cutters to Create Spooky Shaped Foods
Despite the name, cookie cutters are not just for cookies! If you have a variety of cookie cutters in various sizes and shapes, you can easily cut your food into spooky designs for your meals.
Pumpkin-shaped biscuits are my go-to for breakfast sandwiches or dinner roll sides. Mini cutters on sour dough bread make cute toppers for chili or chowder soups. You can even get creative with pizza and combine cookie cut-out pepperoni and mushroom skulls.
5. Carve a Design
Like most people stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I too jumped aboard the bread-making bandwagon. From plain white bread to herbaceous stuffing loaf bread, I baked many loaves. Although they turned out well (after my first few tries), they just didn’t feel spooky enough. One day when I was about to score the top of the loaf, I got the idea to carve a spooky image instead of just scoring in a straight line. I enjoy making bat bread, but you can also design a smiling jack-o-lantern or other Halloween image.
This makes for a fun presentation and adds spooky Halloween fun to an otherwise completely normal dish.
Tell Me About Your Spooky Meals
That’s it for my 5 simple ways to add a little spookiness to your daily meals. I look forward to sharing more tips in future posts.
Now I want to hear from you! How do you add touches of Halloween to your meals? Let me know on Instagram & Twitter @EmilyIsHorror
Want to try some Halloween-inspired recipes? Try:
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