Halloween is the perfect time to get your little monsters cooking. Here are my top tips for conjuring up some foodie fun!
Let little hands help
From mixing and rolling to decorating ghostly treats, kids of all ages love getting involved. Try spider cupcakes, monster burgers, or fruity ghouls and ghosts for simple recipes with big spooky impact.
Food as art
Turn healthy snacks into creepy creations! Let kids make monster faces on pizzas with veggie toppings or decorate porridge with fruit to create Halloween characters.
Add edible eyes
Stock up on edible eyes – they turn ordinary snacks into Halloween hits! Stick them on pancakes, fruit, or wraps for instant spooky vibes.
Skip the pumpkin – carve a pepper!
Bell peppers make a fun (and easier!) alternative to pumpkins. Carve faces and fill them with rice or spaghetti for a ghoulishly good dinner.
Keep it simple
Sometimes excitement takes over so keep their attention with quick, fun recipes like:
- Puff pastry cheese straw snakes
- Mozzarella eyeballs in wormy spaghetti
- Green ‘monster dip’ (avocado & yoghurt)
- Halloween-shaped sandwiches using cookie cutters
Let them pick the potion
Make mealtimes exciting by letting your child help choose the menu. Scroll through the Halloween recipe collection on my app and choose a fun recipe to cook-up together. If a dish looks good to them, they’re much more likely to want to try it. And by involving them in the planning process, they’ll feel more empowered and excited to help in the kitchen.
ANNABEL KARMEL’S SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN BROWNIES
Simple but oh so effective! Kids will love to help spookify chocolate brownie squares into mummies!
Ingredients
250g plain chocolate
200g butter, cubed
200g brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
100g self-raising flour
175g icing sugar
Edible eyes
White writing icing pen
Method
Preheat the oven to 170C Fan. Line a 23cm square tin with non-stick baking paper.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bowl over a pan of lightly boiling water until runny. Add the sugar and stir. Slowly add the beaten eggs and mix well. Fold in the flour. Pour into the tin and level the top.
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes until firm. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Slice into 20 squares.
Put the icing sugar into a bowl. Add enough boiling water to make a thick white icing and whisk.
Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle. Pipe the icing over half of the brownies to make the Halloween mummy bandages and then add the eyes. Pipe thin spider webs over the remaining brownies using the writing icing pen.
ANNABEL KARMEL’S AVOCADO MONSTER SMASH WRAPS
A great way to gets kids eating their greens! These monster smash tortillas are simple and frightfully fun to make, plus, they are loaded with goodness too.
Ingredients
2 large ripe avocado
4 spring onions, finely chopped
¼ red chili, diced (optional)
Juice ½ lemon or lime
½ clove garlic, crushed
4 mini tortilla wraps
1 large tomato, deseeded and diced
½ red pepper, sliced
½ large cucumber, sliced
1 mini cucumber, sliced
Edible eyes
Method
Slice the avocado in half and remove the stone. Mash in a bowl. Add the onions, chilli if using), lemon juice and garlic and mix well.
Put the tortilla wraps on a board. Spread the avocado over the surface. Decorate with scary Halloween faces using the vegetables; layer the cucumber on top of each other then add to the pizza for the eyes. Add edible eyes for the eyeballs then add pepper and tomatoes for the mouth and eyebrows.
ANNABEL KARMEL’S SPOOKY PUMPKIN, APPLE & SPICE CAKE
Boo! This Halloween cake is ghoulishly good, and your little monsters will love to get involved in decorating their own ghosts, spiders, bats and Frankensteins!
Ingredients
Cake
200g self-raising flour
80g caster sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
1½ tsp ground ginger
200ml sunflower oil
80ml maple syrup
3 eggs
1 apple, peeled and grated
150g pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled and grated
75g raisins
Decoration
300g ready-made buttercream
100g milk or dark chocolate
50g each of white and black fondant
Orange, green and black food colouring
Oreos
Edible eyes
Method
Preheat the oven to 170C Fan. Line a deep 23cm round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.
Mix the flour, caster sugar, baking powder and spices together in a bowl. Mix the oil, syrup and eggs together in a jug. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Add the apple, pumpkin or squash and raisins. Mix well and spoon into the tin.
Bake in the oven for 50 minutes until well risen and firm in the centre. Cool on a wire rack.
For the decoration, put 100g of buttercream into a piping bag (this will be the white buttercream for the ghosts and mummies).
Separate the remaining buttercream into three bowls. Add orange food colouring to one, green to another and black to the last bowl. Mix well so you have 3 coloured buttercreams and transfer these into piping bags and choose your spooky decoration!
GHOSTS
Pipe on the white buttercream, finishing with a point at the bottom. Roll eyes and a nose from black fondant and stick on.
SPIDER
Melt the chocolate, let it cool slightly then add to a piping bag. Cut a very small hole at the bottom and then pipe spider shapes onto greaseproof paper. Put in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes to harden (alternatively you can buy mini edible spiders). Pipe orange buttercream onto the cake slice, then add a chocolate spider and edible eyes.
BATS
Pipe black buttercream onto the slices. Add whole Oreos for faces, quartered Oreos for the wings and edible eyes.
FRANKENSTEIN
Pipe green buttercream onto the slices. Roll some of the black fondant into a thin, flat piece and cut out his hair. Roll balls of white and black fondant for eyes, long thin pieces of black fondant for his mouth and a small white fondant tooth.
MUMMIES
Pipe white fondant onto the slices. Roll long thin strips of white fondant and put these on top of the buttercream overlapping each other. Add two small pieces of black fondant for the eyes.
GET THE APP: Annabel Karmel Kids Recipes
