A ‘Happy’ Halloween Party even if you don’t like Halloween!

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Halloween Pumpkin Party #shopEvery year in the UK Halloween seems to be gaining in popularity, but what if you don’t like scares or gore? Perhaps the idea of terrifying your loved ones doesn’t appeal or you feel that celebrating the kind of thing we’d normally avoid seems contradictory. Whatever your reasons if you don’t like Halloween do you have to avoid the season completely? Personally I don’t think so, I think it’s more than possible to have a ‘happy’ Halloween. I’ve never been a big fan myself and all my children are easily scared so I set out on a mission to make Halloween fun for everyone.

decorations #shopOne of the best things about autumn is the readily available supply of pumpkins, carve them, cook them, stick them in a pie and they are down right delicious! We bought three this year, two we carved and one became a bowl to hold sweets. I invited family and friends who are not Halloween fans to our Pumpkin Party and we set to work.

We bought most of our decorations and supplies from Wilkinsons and you can see how we got on with our shop by clicking here.

table #shopOur Pumpkin Party started with a whimsical meal squidged around a table, it was cosy! We ate Pumpkin Shaped gluten free biscuits (for the recipe see my last blog post).

Gluten free pumpkin shaped biscuits #shop

Gluten free pumpkin shaped biscuits

Yummy Spiced Pumpkin teabread and Pumpkin pie, all made with the pumpkin flesh carved from our decorative pumpkins.

Spiced Pumpkin Teabread #shop

Spiced Pumpkin Teabread

Toffee apples, which I was more than a little proud of. I’ve never got the toffee to stick properly before but apparently the trick is to place all your apples into a bowl and cover with boiling water for a couple of minutes before drying and dipping into the toffee. Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing, again this was made from our fresh pumpkins and they were absolutely delicious!

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing #shop

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

We all ate until we felt ready to burst and the light had dimmed enough to show our pumpkins (carved by my husband) glowing softly. The fun wasn’t over though, we had party games to play!

Leaf Design Pumpkin #shop

Leaf Design Pumpkin

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt

Party games can be hard at the best of times, but trying to find vaguely Halloween themed games which aren’t remotely scary or gross is particularly tasking. In the end I settled for a treasure hunt. Clues were hidden about the house written on pumpkin shaped notes and the final clue led to a chocolately prize! This seemed to go down really well and there was lots of giggling from adults and children alike.

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt #shop

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt

Pass the Pumpkin

Next we played a twist on pass the parcel. We’d hollowed out one small pumpkin until it could comfortably fit a bowl inside, this was then filled with sweets. The music played and the pumpkin was passed around until the music stopped, the holder of the pumpkin could choose one sweet. The music stopped ten times and whoever was holding the pumpkin on stop number ten won the entire remaining contents!

Pass the Pumpkin #shop

Pass the Pumpkin

Finally after much fun and hilarity we waved our guests off but not before they took a favour from our Halloween tree, small cones filled with yummy delights! This is an adaption on an earlier tutorial I wrote.

Halloween Favours #shop

Halloween Favours

Gluten Free Vanilla Biscuits Cookies

Gluten free Vanilla Biscuits

Gluten free Vanilla Biscuits

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I now have a relative who has to eat gluten free food. Most of the time this presents absolutely no problems, it’s really only at parties where the vast majority of food is cake, biscuits and breads that all of a sudden nothing is suitable. With that in mind I’ve adapted one of my favourite biscuit recipes to make it gluten free. These biscuits are lovely sprinkled lightly with caster sugar or iced, depending on your preference.

Ingredients

300g/11oz Butter or baking margarine

450g/16oz Plain gluten free flour (I used Doves Farm)

1 Tsp Xanthum gum

250g/9oz Caster sugar

2 Tsp Vanilla extract

 

Method

In a large bowl sieve together the flour and xanthum gum. Add the butter and rub together using your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add in the caster sugar and vanilla extract, and bring together into a dough using your hands.

Start to roll your dough on a floured surface (remember to use your gluten free flour!) and then cut out into your chosen shape.

Bake at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 9-10 minutes until lightly golden at the edges.

Remove from the oven and place onto a cooking rack before sprinkling lightly with caster sugar. If you are planning on icing the biscuits then omit the sprinkling of sugar and leave them to cool completely before decorating.

Tip.

If you don’t have any Xanthum gum or can’t find it (we got ours at Sainsburys so it’s readily available) then you can remove it from the recipe. However you will find that the finished biscuits are really crunchy and better for dunking in a cup of tea, also without the Xanthum gum you might need to bake for 1-2 mins less.

All my family really enjoy these biscuits whether they eat gluten or not, which makes them the perfect substitute.

 

Hedgehog Bread!

IMG_2612Last week I posted up first attempt at making a Bento Box, which I was quite pleased with. Bento provides the perfect opportunity to make lunch fun, but what if you don’t want to spend ages moulding rice or carefully cutting vegetables? How about making some Hedgehog rolls instead!

They are a fond reminder of childhood for me but my own children have never tried them. We remedied this serious oversight this past weekend and the kids were all delighted with the results!

In a nutshell you need to make up a basic bread dough (recipe below) and leave it to rise, then break the dough into pieces and mould rough ball shapes on a tray. Leave to rise once more.IMG_2596

Next take some scissors and snip about 2/3 of the dough ball all over to make your hedgehog’s spines. Finally use some dried fruit if you want to add a couple of eyes.IMG_2599

Then all you need to do is bake them for about 25 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Warning the results are often so cute that you either eat far too many or none at all!

IMG_2612Variations

Once you’ve mastered your basic bread hog it’s really easy to make all kinds of variations by adding herbs or changing white flour to wholemeal. You could even make a sweet bread or a huge hedgehog loaf, the possibilities are endless!

 

Basic Bread Dough Recipe

1lb/500g White Flour

2 fl oz/60ml Olive Oil

15g/ 0.52 Dried Yeast Packet

1/2 Tsp Salt

9fl oz/270ml Tepid Water

 

Method

Mix all the ingredients together and knead for about 4 minutes. Leave the dough in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.

Tip the dough onto a floured surface and cut into equal parts, shape into dough balls and leave to rise for 1 hour.

Snip and add eyes if making into a hedgehog.

Bake in the oven at 230C/450F/Gas Mark 8 for about 25-30mins or until the bottom of the rolls sound hollow when tapped.