Halloween Entertaining Ideas

As far back as I can remember I've loved Halloween — decorating the house, watching scary movies, costumes, the lot. I have passed this on to my kids who have been begging me to start decorating since mid-September! I resisted until the beginning of October and now we are in full swing spookifying the house!

Every year since they were very small we've had a Halloween party which usually features some spooky goodies, and I thought I'd share a few of the Halloween-inspired treats I'll be serving up this year!

Ghoulish Grazing Platter

Always a crowd-pleaser and my go-to for any get-together is a grazing platter or charcuterie board. For my Halloween version I've used our (blood!) splattered platter and loaded it up with cured meats, cheeses, olives, crackers, dried apricots, nuts, blackberries and grapes. I used our splatter bowl for the olives and then added some spiders and a skull for some spooky decoration!

Bewitching Blackberry Bellini

Next up, a blackberry bellini served in our vintage cocktail glasses, made with prosecco and raspberry Chambord liqueur with scary eyeball garnishes.

The eyeballs are made very easily with a lychee and a blueberry squished into it, topped off with a blackberry!

I made some grenadine by heating equal parts pomegranate juice and caster sugar (I only needed a small amount to create the 'blood' oozing out of the eyeballs, so I used 2 tbsp of each). Heat gently until all the sugar dissolves and you have a syrup-like consistency, then allow to cool. Skewer the eyeball and a couple of blackberries and lay across the glass, then drizzle the grenadine over the eyeball.

Arrange on a tray with some spider decorations for an extra spooky touch! I added some thin black bows to the stems of the glasses for a finishing touch.

Vampire Cookies

These were great fun to make with the kids and so easy! I made them with digestive biscuits but I've made them with chocolate chip cookies before, which are even tastier. Simply cut the biscuits in half and use a red icing pen (or if you have the time, make up a batch of red frosting with icing sugar and water and smear it across one side of the cookies).

Stick the white mini marshmallow teeth to the icing and add an almond or half a white chocolate button for the fangs. Then pop the other half of the cookie on top of the mini marshmallows and you're done!

Happy Halloween!