Halloween Recipes for all to enjoy!

Halloween Recipes for all to enjoy!!

Why not try the following Recipes for the kids to enjoy this Halloween!:

Chocolate Bat Biscuits

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 85g icing sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp milk
• 175g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
• 1 tsp fine espresso-style powder coffee (I used Azeera)
• 50g cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp salt

To decorate

• 100g bar dark or milk chocolate
• chocolate hundreds and thousands
• coloured writing icing (or make your own with 100g icing sugar, 3-4 tsp water and some colouring)

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line two baking sheets with baking parchment. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and pale, then beat in the yolk, the vanilla and milk. Sift the flour, coffee, cocoa and salt into the bowl, then mix together to make a soft dough. Shape the dough into a disc, wrap and chill for 15 mins.
2. Dust the dough all over with a little flour, then roll it between two large sheets of baking parchment, to the thickness of a £1 coin. Remove the top layer of the paper, stamp shapes with an 8cm bat (or other) cutter, and carefully lift to the lined sheets using a palette knife. Re-roll the trimmings. Cut a 1.5cm x 5mm notch at the base of each bat’s body. This is about right to sit the bats on thick tumblers; if your glasses are finer-edged, make the notches thinner so that the bats stay put. Bake for 10 mins or until the biscuits feel sandy and smell rich and chocolatey. Cool on the sheets for 5 mins, then lift the cookies onto a wire rack and cool completely.
3. To decorate, melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave. One biscuit at a time, brush chocolate over the bat ears and wings with a small paintbrush, then cover with chocolate sprinkles. Tap off the excess. Pipe faces and fangs onto your bats, then leave to dry. Keep in an airtight container for up to a week.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, October 2014

Frankenstein Cupcakes

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

• 200g soft butter
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 250g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature

• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 100ml milk, at room temperature

To decorate

• 300g icing sugar, sifted
• 2-3 tbsp milk
• green food colouring paste (we used Party Green from Sugarflair)

• 36 mini marshmallows, 12 snipped in half (for the eyes)
• tube of black piping icing or gel

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with deep muffin cases. Cream the butter with the sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the remaining cake ingredients and beat until smooth. Spoon into the muffin cases and bake for 20 mins or until golden and a skewer inserted into one of the middle cakes comes out clean. Cool for 5 mins in the tin, then completely on a wire rack.

2. Using a small, sharp serrated knife, cut a semi-circle piece of cake from the left and right of each cake, to make stepped edges, level with the cupcake case. Next, make
 a widthways cut about 3cm from the top 
of the cake, about 1cm deep. Slice a 5mm piece off the surface of the cake to meet this cut, to make a flat, raised face and prominent forehead. Chill for 10 mins to firm the crumbs.

3. Mix the icing sugar, milk and green colouring to make a very thick icing that flows slowly from the spoon. Spoon 1 tbsp onto a cake and let it begin to spread 
itself over the cut shape. Ease it here and there with a palette knife to coat. Add marshmallow neck bolts and eyes. Repeat for each cupcake. Leave to set, then pipe on the faces and hair.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, October 2014