When it comes to Halloween cooking, the ingredients you choose can make or break the spooky ambience of your dishes. Essential to any Halloween recipe are ingredients that evoke the essence of fall and bring a touch of the eerie. Chocolate adds an element of decadence and mystery, perfect for creating ghostly desserts.
The small Welsh chocolate factory; Wickedly Welsh Chocolate creates handmade, artisanal chocolate and they’ve put together the following delicious, Halloween-themed recipes:
Pumpkin cake pops (makes 12)
Ingredients
For the cake
- 1 large egg
- 75g caster sugar
- 75g self-raising flour
- 75g butter
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 150g butter cream
Decoration
- 200g Wickedly White chocolate bar
- 50g white fondant icing
- Food colouring: orange, black and green
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C and grease your cake tin in preparation.
- Start making the cake by mixing the butter, sugar and vanilla extract to create a creamy paste.
- Next, beat in the eggs before slowly sifting in the flour and folding into the mix, creating a smooth batter.
- Spoon cake mixture into the greased cake tin and bake for approximately 20 minutes, until the cake has risen and turned golden brown. To check the cake is cooked thoroughly, pierce with a knife. If the knife comes out clean the cake is fully baked. Remove from cake tin and set on a wire rack to cool.
- Once the cake has cooled, crumble into pieces and mix with butter cream. Roll the mixture into balls. Push a lollypop stick into each ball and pop in the fridge to cool for an hour.
- When the cake pops have cooled, it’s time to prepare the decoration. Melt one bar of Wickedly White chocolate. Once melted and smooth, add in two to three drops of orange food colouring. Add in more if needed to create a vibrant orange colour.
- Immediately dip each cake pop into the melted chocolate and let any excess drip from the pop. Set upright in a mug for the chocolate to cool and harden.
- Split the fondant icing into two sections. In one section add two to three drops of black food colouring to create a black fondant. In the other section repeat but with the green food colouring. Add more food colouring to each if needed.
- Start making the pumpkin features by cutting out three triangles; one for the nose and two for the eyes, along with a spooky mouth for each cake pop. Use the green fondant to create stalks for each cake pop.
- Once the melted chocolate has set, start decoration your cake pops to resemble pumpkins. Adding on the fondant eyes, nose, mouth and stalks.
Spooky spiders web brownies (makes 12)
Ingredients
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g softened butter
- 50g cocoa powder
- 3 medium eggs (beaten)
- 150g self-raising flour
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 200g Devilishly Dark chocolate
- Pinch of sea salt
Decoration
- 10 marshmallows
- 40g white fondant icing
- Black food colouring or a black icing pen
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a 20cm baking dish.
- Chop the Devilish Dark chocolate into chunks and separate into two halves. In the microwave melt one half of the chocolate chunks for 20-second intervals, stirring between each round, making sure not to burn the chocolate. Continue until melted.
- Add butter and sugar to a bowl and mix until smooth. Slowly combine the beaten eggs and vanilla extract into the mixture.
- Incorporate the slightly cooled melted chocolate and whisk. Ensure the chocolate is not too hot when adding as this will start cooking the eggs.
- Sift in the cocoa powder and flour. Add a pinch of salt and fold all ingredients together.
- Sprinkle in the rest of the chocolate chunks and stir.
- Spoon the brownie batter into the greased dish and pop in the oven to bake for approximately 20 minutes. Once baked, allow to cool.
- Meanwhile, it’s time to prepare the spooky decorations!
- Add a spoonful of butter to a pan and heat over a low to medium heat. Add the marshmallows into the pan and stir regularly until melted.
- Let the melted marshmallow cool slightly before pinching some of the mixture between your fingers to create strands. Drape over the cooled brownies to create a spider web-like pattern.
- Separate approximately 15g of fondant from the rest and add in drops of black food colouring until fully black.
- Using the remaining white fondant, roll 24 small balls of icing and flatten to disks to start creating the spooky eyes. Repeat the process with the black fondant, but this time creating disk shapes that are half the size – these will be the pupils.
- Assemble the eyes by placing the black pupils onto the white disks and arrange evenly over the cooled brownies.
- Slice the brownie into even pieces and serve to your Halloween guests!
Wickedly Welsh’s ghostly good hot chocolate (serves 2)
Ingredients
- 1 sachet of Wickedly Welsh Hot Chocolate
- 400ml milk
Decoration
- Whipped cream to serve
- Mini marshmallows
- Edible icing pen
Method
- Heat 400ml of milk over a medium heat on the hob.
- Add in your hot chocolate sachet. Continuously stir until the chocolate has melted and blended with the milk.
- Remove from the heat and pour into two mug.
- Draw eyes and a mouth onto the mini marshmallow to create a ghostly face.
- Add a generous helping of whipped squirty cream to the top of your hot chocolate and place on your ghost marshmallow face
