A Great Collection of Halloween Recipes and Crafts for Your Entire Family! - Edible Spiders,Eerie Eyeballs,Creepy Witches' Fingers,Creepy Cookies,Brittle Merangue Bones,Savory Brain Shrimp Spread, Monster Face Invitations,Fun Outdoor Scenes,and more...

SNEAK PEAK

Edible Spiders
U se a deocrating tube to pipe the icing into spider shapes on waxed paper. They are made from Royal Icing, which needs to be used right away since it hardens to a rocklike texture very quickly!
R oyal Icing
16 oz powdered sugar (icing sugar)
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Beat until peaks firmly hold their shape, and the more you beat it, the firmer it gets.
I only made a third of this recipe and I still had tons of icing left over after making two dozen spiders. I used black paste food coloring to get it as dark as I could...
Eerie Eyeballs
Yields approximately 9 dozen bite-sized eyeballs
3 oz lemon gelatin (can be sugar-free) 1 cup hot water
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows 1 cup pineapple juice
8 oz cream cheese (can be lowfat/Neufchatel) 1 cup mayonnaise (can be fat-free)
Dissolve lemon gelatin in 1 cup water in double boiler, add marshmallows and stir to melt. Remove from heat. Add pineapple juice and cream cheese. Beat until well blended.
Cool slightly. Fold in mayo. If you have a truffle candy mold or round ice cube trays, pour the mixture in the molds and leave to set in the fridge. Otherwise pour into a deep ceramic dish and chill until thickened or firm enough for scooping into eyeballs. Using a melonballer, scoop full balls of the mixture and set aside for decoration. To decorate, use
liquid food coloring and an old detail paintbrush and get creative. You will need black
food coloring for the pupils. Also, if you are in a hurry, instead of painting the colored irises, you can carefully dip the ball in a small pool of food coloring to approximate the iris, but still paint on the pupils.
F or 1999, I found rubber ice cube trays that worked beautifully with much less waste than the melonballer technique. I sprayed the rubber trays with non-stick cooking spray beforehand like you would any gelatin mold, let the gelatin mixture sit in the refrigerator to set, then I was able to carefully pop the eyeballs out to paint them. Some of the eyeballs did break, and they do have one flat side, but that actually works, since then they don't roll around while you are trying to paint them. Since 2001 I have found that Wilton truffle candy molds are even better, since the swirl design on the top is the right size for the cornea shape on the eyeball. When using the truffle molds, one recipe makes about 9 dozen eyeballs - plenty for a party crowd!
Creepy Witches' Fingers Yield: 5 dozen
1 cup Butter, so ftened
1 cup Icing sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla
2 2/3 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Almonds, whole blanched
1 Tube red decorator gel
(optional, not pictured)
G ross everyone out with these creepy cookies.
In bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, alm nd extract and vanilla. Beat in flour, baking soda, and salt. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Working with one quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remainder refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoonful of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press almond firmly into 1 end for nail. Squeeze in centre to create knuckle shape. (Accompanying picture showed long rolled shape with bulge at centre for knuckle; you puff it out rather than squeeze it in.) Using paring knife, make slashes in several places to form knuckle.
Place on lightly greased baking sheets; bake in 325F (160C) oven for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for 3 minutes. Lift up almond, squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and press almond back in place, so gel oozes out from underneath. You can also make slashes in the finger and fill them with "blood."
Remove from baking sheets and let cool on racks. Repeat with remaining dough.
Brittle Merangue Bones
3 large egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line cookie sheet with brown paper bag or parchment. In a medium sized bowl at high speed, beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt till fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar. Add vanilla. Place in pastry bag fitted with a medium plain piping tip. Pipe 3" bone shapes onto parchment or brown paper bag. Bake 1 hour until set. Turn off oven, dry in oven 1 hour. Makes 4 to 5 dozen small bones. (back to top)
Savory Brain Shrimp Spread
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
1 (.25-ounce) envelope unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/4 cup water
1 bunch green onions, chopped
3 pounds cooked shrimp, coarsely chopped
(or 1 pound crab meat)
1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Tabasco or creole seasoning to taste
Heat soup, undiluted, a nd mix in the cream cheese. Stir in softened gelatin and blend well.

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