DIY Halloween Party

Happy Halloween! I know there are a ton of differing opinions on this "holiday", many of which are religiously charged, but lets put all the away for a little while and have some fun! I love Halloween, not because I like to be scared... in fact I literally detest being scared.... I love it because it's an opportunity to spend time with friends, family, and people you need to catch up with, all while being silly and dressing up in the process. Not to mention, Halloween calls for some really great cooking and crafting! :)

Today I'm featuring all the things involved in the Halloween Party the official taste tester and I hosted last night. Get ready, this post is going to be packed full of fun things! The graduate program I am involved in is a cohort model which means we all go through the same classes together at the same time. Every year a new cohort comes in so, this campus organization we have works to unite all of us in this crazy journey. Trust me, it's always good to have a support system! Last night, everyone came over in the first and second year cohorts to enjoy some food and fun together.

As yall know, I love to cook AND I love Pinterest so this party was my opportunity to marry my two loves. As someone at the party said, Pinterest was all up in that party last night!! Don't worry about time either, most of these snacks take barely any time to make and can be made tonight before your Halloween party. :)

The first snack I had was the Monster Cake Pops from yesterday's post. You can find the recipe for that here. I decided to go with some variety and make some Ghost Pops too. These are made the same way, except they use white chocolate instead of green. To make these extra special, wrap a Styrofoam block in some black scrapbook paper, preferably one that looks "Halloweeny".

Next, I wanted to make some broomsticks I saw on pinterest here. These are SO cute and SO easy to make. I turned on the TV and had these done before the first commercial break. All you need for these is a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a Bag of stick pretzels. To make them, you just unwrap the Reese's and stick the pretzel in the top. Here is a picture of them:

 

As you can see from the picture above, my broomsticks shared a tray with the creepy eyeballs I made. You can find those here.Out of everything at the party, these eyeballs were the biggest hit. By the end of the night that side of the tray had been demolished! To make them, you need white chocolate baking disks (same ones you use for Cake Pops), square or round pretzels, and chocolate chips. An optional ingredient is the brown or red sprinkle sticks (I used brown because I couldn't find any red). To make these, simply lay out your pretzels on a baking sheet and place one chocolate disk on top. Heat your oven to 350, and then cook your eyeballs for about 3-4 minutes (they are done when the chocolate is shiny). Once you take your eyeballs out of the oven, immediately put a chocolate chip in the white chocolate, pointed side down. Then, if you are using the sprinkles, add those on to look like eye veins. Here is what your finished product looks like:

The next thing I made were some witch hat cookies that you can find here. Out of everything at the party, these were my personal favorite. These are really easy to make too (theme here? I think so!). For these you need some Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies, Orange Frosting, and some Hershey's Kisses. You can make your own frosting, but I was in a hurry and couldn't find orange food coloring so I just bought some. The time it saved was totally worth the extra $2 to me. Take your cookies and put them chocolate side up. Then unwrap your Hershey's kiss, add some icing to the bottom and stick  them together. These were quick to make too and were fabulous. Here are some pictures:

The final thing I made were some Bones. To make these, all you need are some mini marshmallows, pretzel sticks (I bought 1 bag for both the broomsticks and the bones and still had over half the bag left), and some white chocolate (I used the same white chocolate disks from the cake pops and the eyeballs). To make these, stick one mini marshmallow on each end of the pretzel stick and then dip in white chocolate. Then, place them on some white chocolate to dry for about an hour. Here is a picture of the finished product:

To finish everything off, and so we would have something to drink, I bought some orange Hawaiian punch and put it in a beverage dispenser. I highly recommend a beverage dispenser if you do a lot of entertaining. They are easy to use and make the presentation of your party look so much nicer. We got ours at Walmart for $20. I also, bought some blue Hawaiian punch and put it in a punch bowl with a frozen skull in it. I bought the ice mold at Target for $4 and it really made the punch look cool. I added a few gummy worms into the water before I froze it and it turned out very colorful! Also, you can use the mold year after year if you are careful removing the ice! Here is a picture:

 

For our main dish, I picked up a 6 ft sub from Walmart and some chips. These are fairly affordable at $28 for 30-40 people. That's less than $1 per person! Not to mention, it's a great conversation starter when people first get there and notice it. The table we had would only fit 4 feet of sub at a time, so we just kept the other part in our fridge. All the veggies you see in the picture come with the sub when you order it, and then I picked up some chip bags to go with it.

 

 

So, to put it all together I have included pictures of the whole thing at the bottom along with pictures of our guests. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the snacks!

 

The spread

 

Poor Jeremy, he was the only guy there from the whole program!

 

We had a costume contest and my friend Nancy won in her Frog costume. I picked up her trophy at Target for $2.50. I would highly recommend doing the costume contest, it really gets people into the party for not a lot of money!

 

Maggie, although not thrilled about her costume, was a cat getting eaten by a shark.

I was a peacock and the official taste tester was Brutus. Here is a picture of the back of my costume, which I am proud of because I made it!

 

 

 

Happy Party Planning

& Happy Halloween!!

 

 

 

Monster Cake Pops

Hey Everyone! Sorry I was MIA on Friday, I got busy and just never got around to posting something! Don't worry, I have something extra special for you today! :)

Since today is the day before Halloween, I'm going to show you how to make some monster cake pops! They are so cute and fun, I promise they will be a hit wherever you go.

There are a couple ways to make cake pops/balls. You can bake a cake, crumble up the cake, mix it with icing, and then form it into a ball... or you can use cake pop pans. I have tried the first method and absolutely HATED it. The balls were to moist, to sweet, and I could never get them into a perfectly round shape. The second method is a lot easier, and works so much better. Only downside, the cake pop pans aren't cheap. I got mine in the Halloween section at target for $15 a piece, but they also have them in the regular baking supplies section for about $16.50. Slightly steep, but if you are going to be using them a lot like I am, it's worth it. Besides, they are so cute!!

Ingredients & Supplies for Cake Pops:
2 Cake Pop pans (makes 24 cake pops)
1 box Cake Mix in your favorite flavor
2 Eggs
1 1/4 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Crisco
Flour

Ingredients & Supplies for Decoration:
White Melting Chocolate + Green Food Coloring OR Green Melting Chocolate
2 Tbsp. Butter, melted
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 Tbsp. Milk
Black food coloring
Cake Pop Holder or Styrofoam Block
Storage Size Ziplock Bag
Optional:
-Candy Eye Balls (Available at Target & Walmart in the cake decorating section)

If you want to make cake pops in a different style, use the cake pop recipe by itself and then decorate in your own way!

To start off, grease your cake pop pan with Crisco. You do this by rubbing a paper towel in the crisco and then just rubbing the inside of the cake pop circles (both sides of the pan!). Next, take your flour and coat your crisco in flour. This greases your pans and makes your cake pops come out of the pan easily. If not, they will be a mangled mess! It's hard to see, but it's there!

Next, mix your cake mix with your water, eggs, and vegetable oil. Notice this is less than what the package calls for BUT this is good, it will make your pops hold up better. Beat your batter with an electric mixer for about a minute. At this point your batter will be THICK. This is a good thing and will make good round & strong cake pops! Next spoon your cake batter into the side of the cake pop pan that doesn't have a hole on top. You want to completely fill the bottom circle or your cake pop won't be a full circle. It's not going to look pretty because your batter is so thick but I promise it will turn out just fine. Here is what mine looked like:

Next place the other half of your cake pop pan on top and secure it. Repeat this with your other cake pop pan. You will probably have some batter left over, I used this to make some extra cupcakes. :)

Cook your cake pops on 350 for 19 minutes. Some of your circles might overflow through the hole in the top but that's ok, the extra cake peels right off. Once your cake balls are done cooking, leave them in the pans and allow them to cool completely. I usually just leave them to cool over night and decorate them in the morning.

Once your pops are completely cool, open up the pan. Each cake pop will have a small lip around it, so grab a knife and cut this part off.

See how cute they are? Once you have your pops prepared, it's time to get your candy ready for dipping. To do this, melt your candy in a microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds at a time until melted. Once I have my chocolate melted, I always keep my bowl inside a double boiler to keep the chocolate warm while you are dipping. To do this, keep some water that's just about boiling on the side and pour it into a bigger bowl, then set your smaller bowl inside. Make sure the water doesn't spill over into your small bowl! I also always keep some water hot on the stove so I can change out my water periodically during the dipping process. If your candy doesn't stay hot enough, your pops will fall off the sticks!

Once your candy is melted, add in a spoon or two of Crisco. This sounds weird I know BUT this will make your candy thinner. You want your candy to be about the consistency of water or your pops will fall off the sticks. Once you have your candy at the right consistency, add in your food coloring.

Now it's time to put the sticks on your pops. To do this, dip the top of the stick into the candy and then stick it into the cake pop. You don't want to stick it to far in there because once you coat the pop, the weight of it will push it down some. Just stick it far enough in to hold it up. Let your pops dry on their sticks for about 5 minutes or until set.

Now it's time for the moment of truth... dipping your sticks. Remember to make sure your candy is thin enough! Dip your cake pop straight into the candy and then lightly tap of the edge of your candy bowl to remove the excess chocolate. Sometimes, your cake pop might tilt to the side if the candy is to heavy. If this happens, it's no big deal, just adjust the cake pop with your finger and then dab some chocolate in where your finger print is. Don't get discouraged after the first one, it takes some practice to get this down! The first time I made these I lost a few in the process! If some of your sticks go strait through, don't worry about it. Just let them finish drying and then cover the hole up with your decorations. These won't be able to stand straight up but they can still be used!

Repeat this step with all your cake pops and set them in your cake pop holder or Styrofoam block to dry for about 30 minutes.

Once your cake pops are dry, mix together your butter, powdered sugar, black food coloring, and milk in a small bowl. Add in more powdered sugar as need to make your icing pretty thick. Basically you are making a butter cream icing to decorate with and you don't want it to drip off. If you don't want to make this from home, you can use a can of icing and it will work just the same.

Once your icing is ready, pour it into your ziplock bag, cut the corner off, and get to decorating! this is the fun part so enjoy yourself! I made some hair and a mouth, and then used some icing to attach some candy eyes. They turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

When I was making the icing to decorate with, I made a little extra and decorated the cupcakes from the extra batter to match. :)

Transporting cake pops is a hard thing to do. I had to take these to my hubby's office, so I ended up putting them in small treat bags and tying a ribbon around them. You can get 50 treat bags at Walmart in the cake decorating section for about $2 and it make the presentation really cute!

Happy Cooking

& Enjoy!!