Halloween Party Planner

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c 2005 MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA

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CONTENTS

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2 PARTY PLANNING CHECKLIST

Prepare for your trick or treaters

3 INVITES

Create an ominous invitation

4 CLIP-ART CRAFT: FOREBODING LABELS

Print out these ghoulish stickers for a deathly tabletop

6 SPOOKY SNACKS AND DRINKS

Make cobweb cookies, witches brew, and ﬁ ve other devilish

delights

- HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN SPICE COOKIES

- SEVERED FINGERS

- WHITE CHOCOLATE GHOSTS

- SPIDERWEB COOKIES

- WITCHES BREW

- PUMPKIN SEED CANDY

- PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

11 SCARY GAMES AND PRANKS

Concoct creepy sounds, eerie stories, and more

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CHECKLIST

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Send out scary invites

Turn your home into a macabre sight

Prepare your calderon of witches brew

Make ghoulish goodies for your guests

Arrange “very bad” goody bags

Gather your scary sounds materials

Enjoy scaring and delighting your guests

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INVITE

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Paper price tags

White card stock

Cup of brewed tea

Paper towels

Matches

Black-ink pen

Corn syrup

Red food coloring

Fine paintbrush

Plastic ﬂ oral tubes

Fake bugs

5/8-inch corks

Black thread

Small cardboard boxes

Excelsior (wood shavings)

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This creepy invitation looks like it came from

a dungeon laboratory—but it’s easy to make at

home.

1. To give the paper an aged look, dip tags and

card stock in tea for a minute; let dry on a paper

towel. Once dry, carefully singe edges. Use a

pen to label specimen tags.

2. To make blood-colored ink, combine 2

teaspoons corn syrup, 3 teaspoons water, and

several drops of red food coloring. Use a paint-

brush to write party details and spatter drips on

card stock.

3. Fill each ﬂ oral tube with fake bugs and top

with cork; attach “specimen” tag with black

thread.

4. Place each invitation (with specimen) in a

cardboard box ﬁ lled with excelsior. Check with

the post ofﬁ ce for mailing speciﬁ cations, or

deliver the invitations yourself.

MAD SCIENTIST BECKONS INVITES

HOW-TO:

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MATERIALS

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CLIP-ART CRAFT: FOREBODING LABELS

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Triple the terror with these labels that urge guests to indulge— if they dare.

Use glue to attach labels to plain room-temperature bottles or carafes (you

can soak wine bottles to remove their original labels. Allow two days to set.

Or print labels on following page on adhesive backed paper using an ink-jet

printer, then press onto bottles.

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CLIP-ART CRAFT: FOREBODING LABELS

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Print labels on adhesive-backed paper,

cut out, and press onto bottles. or print

labels, cut out, and use craft glue to at-

tach to bottles.

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RECIPES

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FOLD

HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN SPICE COOKIES

4 3/4 cups all-purpose ﬂ our

2 tablespoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter,

room temperature

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup molasses

Royal Icing

Paste or gel food coloring

MAKES ABOUT 6 1/2 DOZEN COOKIES

Decorating cookies can be an enjoyable activity for a Halloween party. Using colorful royal icing, you can

decorate round spice cookies to look like jack-o’-lanterns. Using a pastry bag ﬁ tted with a #2 tip, pipe around

the edge of the cookie and outline a jack-o’-lantern’s face with icing. Then ﬁ ll in the areas using another pas-

try bag ﬁ lled with royal icing of a slightly thinner consistency. To make royal icing thicker, add more confec-

tioners’ sugar; for thinner icing, add another egg white.

1. Combine ﬂ our, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger in a large bowl; sift, and set

aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer ﬁ tted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugar. Beat,

starting on low speed and increasing to high, until mixture is ﬂ uffy, about 2 minutes; scrape the sides

of the bowl down once with a rubber spatula. Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla; beat on medium

speed until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

3. Turn off mixer. Add molasses, and mix on medium speed until just combined. Scrape sides of the

bowl, and add dry ingredients. Mix, starting on low speed and increasing to medium high, until ingredi-

ents are just combined, about 30 seconds.

4. Transfer dough to a clean work surface. Roll the dough into four 1 1/2-inch-diameter logs. Wrap in

parchment or plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ﬁ rm, 1 to 2 hours.

5. Heat oven to 350°. Unwrap, and slice each log into 3/8-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds on parch-

ment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies crack slightly on the surface, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove

from oven, and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

6. When completely cool, decorate with royal icing mixed with desired food coloring

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RECIPES

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FOLD

SEVERED FINGERS

MAKES 30

If Halloween night were to ﬁ nd you in a misty graveyard, suddenly feeling the touch of ghoulish ﬁ ngers on

the back of your neck, those ﬁ ngers would probably bear a strong resemblance to our cookie. And with

red-stained blanched almonds standing in for ﬁ ngernails, these creepy confections will beckon to you from

beyond the grave, summoning you right over to their serving plate.

2 tablespoons red food coloring

30 blanched almonds

2 large eggs

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room

temperature

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

5 tablespoons granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

1 2/3 cups all-purpose ﬂ our

1. Heat oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with Silpats (French nonstick baking mats) or parchment

paper, and set aside.

2. Place food coloring in a shallow bowl. Using a small paintbrush, color one rounded half of each

almond. Set aside to dry.

3. Separate 1 egg. Set aside the white. In a small bowl, whisk together yolk, remaining egg, and vanilla.

Set aside.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer ﬁ tted with the paddle attachment, combine butter, confectioners’

sugar, granulated sugar, and salt. Beat on medium speed until well combined. Add egg mixture, and

beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the ﬂ our, and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Wrap

the dough in plastic, and chill until ﬁ rm, 20 to 30 minutes.

5. Divide the dough in half. Work with one piece at a time, keeping remaining dough covered with plas-

tic wrap and chilled. Divide the ﬁ rst half into ﬁ fteen pieces. On a lightly ﬂ oured surface, roll each piece

back and forth with palms into ﬁ nger shapes, 3 to 4 inches long. Pinch dough in two places to form

knuckles. Score each knuckle lightly with the back of a small knife. Transfer ﬁ ngers to prepared baking

sheets. Repeat with remaining dough.

6. When all ﬁ ngers are formed, brush lightly with egg white. Position almond nails; push into dough to

attach.

7. Bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Cool completely.

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RECIPES

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WHITE CHOCOLATE GHOSTS

MAKES ABOUT 15

12 ounces white chocolate chips

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Lollipop sticks

Mini chocolate chips

1. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper; set

aside.

2. Melt white chocolate in a heat-proof bowl over

simmering water; stir occasionally. Remove bowl;

mix in oil. Drop 1 tablespoon of mixture onto pre-

pared baking sheet. Use the back of a teaspoon

to quickly spread into a ghost. Place a lollipop

stick at the base, spinning to coat. Add chocolate

chip eyes. Refrigerate ghosts 5 minutes, then peel

off.

SPIDERWEB COOKIES

MAKES ABOUT 5 DOZEN

All-purpose ﬂ our, for dusting

Chocolate Cookies dough

Royal Icing

Black icing or melted chocolate

1. Heat oven to 350°. On a well-ﬂ oured board,

roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using either

cookie cutters or a pattern cut out of cardboard,

cut cookies into shapes of bats and cobwebs.

Place on ungreased baking sheet, and chill until

ﬁ rm, about 15 minutes. Bake until edges are

crisp, but not darkened, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on

wire racks before icing.

2. To make the cobweb design, begin by icing

cookie with royal icing. Pipe out a spiral of black

icing starting from the center to the edges of the

cookie. Draw a skewer or tip of a sharp knife from

the center to each point on the cookie, and then

from the inner curves back to the center. Repeat

with remaining cookies and icing.

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These spooky chocolate lollipops make a great parting gift for guests. You can even display them by the door

wrapped in cellophane or propped up in a shallow box ﬁ lled with ﬂ oral foam and icky moss.

These chocolate cookies are as elegant as they are frightening. With a artistic cobweb design

—created with

royal icing—they are not your run-of-the-mill treat.

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RECIPES

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WITCHES’ BREW

Serve root-beer ﬂ oats from a “steaming” cauldron

made magical with the smoke of dry ice. You’ll

need a large cauldron and a chilled bowl that

ﬁ ts inside it (dry ice can cause glass to crack, so

use bowls made of metal); dry ice (available in

supermarkets); frozen root-beer mugs; root beer;

and ice cream. Wearing gloves, use an ice pick

to break up the dry ice (never touch it with your

bare hands); place a few pieces in the cauldron.

Cover the ice with water, pushing the ice under

with a long wooden spoon if necessary, and place

the chilled bowl in the cauldron. Fill the bowl with

root beer. Put a scoop of ice cream in each mug,

and ladle root beer over the top.

PUMPKIN SEED CANDY

MAKES 30 PIECES

These wrapped candies are perfect treats for celebrating Halloween. Pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, are available

hulled or unhulled at health-food stores. Paper candy cups are available at baking supply stores.

1 cup hulled pepitas

1/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup good-quality honey

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, plus 2 table-

spoons melted for brushing

on a candy thermometer, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove

from heat, and stir in cold butter.

3. Let the mixture cool to 240°, about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, brush the inside of ﬁ fteen 1-inch-

diameter black paper cups with melted butter,

reserving 1 tablespoon. Spoon a scant tablespoon

of the honey mixture into each cup. Brush a

clean work surface with the remaining butter,

and spoon the remaining honey mixture on it so

mixture will continue to cool.

4. When remaining candy is stiff and cool

enough to handle, about 6 minutes, cut into 3/4-

inch pieces with a greased knife. Put one piece

of candy in center of each of ﬁ fteen 4-by-4-inch

pieces of orange cellophane wrap, gather cel-

lophane at the top, and secure with a twist of a

4 1/2-inch piece of ﬂ oral wire. Wrap the ends of

ﬂ oral wire around a skewer to form tendrils.

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add pepitas; toast, stirring constantly until seeds

pop and become slightly golden, about 3 min-

utes. Transfer to a bowl to cool.

2. Place sugar and honey in a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to

dissolve sugar, about 3 minutes. Add pepitas, and

continue cooking until temperature registers 285°

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RECIPES

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PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

MAKES 18

2 cups all-purpose ﬂ our

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 can pumpkin purée (15 ounces)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake pans with

paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk

together ﬂ our, baking soda, baking powder, salt,

cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar,

granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingre-

dients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin

purée.

3. Divide batter evenly among liners, ﬁ lling each

about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when

touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center

comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans

once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool

completely.

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Adding a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger along with pumpkin puree gives these cupcakes a rich taste.

Top with any icing you like. Cream cheese icing would complement them nicely.

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SCARY GAMES AND PRANKS

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In 1883, around the time Halloween was starting to pick up steam in America, one Nebraska news-

paper called it “the worldwide holiday of the vicious small boy.” Evidently, juvenile vandals had never

come out in such force or operated with so much abandonment or glee. Pranks such as smearing

doorknobs with tar and removing front gates from fenced yards were all in a day’s destruction for

would-be Halloween hooligans. For the more ambitious, there was the late nineteenth-century fad of

knocking over the outhouse while someone was in it, or dismantling some hapless farmer’s wagon

and reassembling it on the roof of the local school.

These days it’s a little trickier to take apart and reassemble the neighbor’s wagon, given that it’s

probably an SUV. But you can ﬁ nd new delight on Halloween by dusting off some party games and

pranks from a time when entertainment was planned for, and indulged in, the company of others.

Ghost Story Pranks

No crowd is better primed for a good prank than one listening to a ghost story in the dark. One

perfect stunt for storytelling requires hiding a compatriot outside the house; as soon as the tale

reaches a crucial, scary section, he starts to rub a well-rosined bow on a violin string that has been

afﬁ xed to a windowpane. An eerie, weirdly pitched wail ﬁ lls the room, but its source is inexplicable.

For maximum chills, consider adding this trick to the same story session: Candles are placed

around the room. As the story nears its climax, they mysteriously go out, one by one, until the room

is dark. To achieve the effect, simply cut the candles in two, remove a small piece of the wick from

the middle, then join the pieces back together by heating the cut ends. When a candle burns down

to the missing section of wick, it gutters and dies.

Scared yet? No? Then it’s time to turn to the ickiest and coolest of all Halloween storytelling pranks:

making your friends feel around in a dead man’s “guts.” Fill a darkened room with blindfolded

guests, then take off on Charles F. Smith’s circa-1930s “A Hallowe’en Post Mortem,” which he wrote

for the Boy Scouts: “The truth it is, and not a myth/That once there lived a man named Smith,/

And it became his mournful lot/To murdered be quite near this spot./ We now will pass out his

remains,/You ﬁ rst will handle poor Smith’s brains....” At this point, “moist sponges are passed from

guest to guest.” The verse continues, disassembling poor Smith bit by bit—his hair (corn silk), his

windpipe (a length of uncut boiled macaroni), his hand (a glove stuffed with wet sand)—until little

of him is left to distribute. Never let it be said that Boy Scouts lack a sense of the bizarre.

DO YOU KNOW?

The Halloween custom of bobbing for apples began as a

Celtic matchmaking game. The ﬁ rst person to bite into an

apple was deemed the next to marry.

OLD FASHIONED GAMES AND PRANKS

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SCARY GAMES AND PRANKS

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Games of Disguise

Halloween games of disguise survive in many old sources, and they don’t necessarily involve elabo-

rate costumes. In “nosey,” the party guests are divided into two groups and sent into adjoining rooms.

A curtain or heavy sheet with a small slit in it is hung in the doorway. One of the players sticks his

or her nose through the slit, making sure nothing else shows. Then the game leader chants, “The

witches have stolen somebody’s nose. Who does it belong to, do you suppose?” and everyone on

the opposing team attempts to guess the owner of the nose. If correct, the guessing team scores a

point and the opposing team must present another nose for their regard. If the guess is wrong, then

the guessing team must now start offering up noses—which, it should be noted, can be very hard to

recognize without any accompanying features!

A good game for younger children is “the black cat and her kittens.” One child is chosen as the black

cat and is escorted from the room. The rest of the children then take their places around the table,

laying their heads on their arms so that they cannot see anything. The game leader then touches

several children on their heads, tapping them as the black cat’s kittens. When the black cat is brought

back into the room, the kittens meow for their mother, and the mother attempts to locate them by

their meows. The ﬁ rst kitten to be found takes the mother cat’s place for the next round, but the rest

must keep up their meowing until every last kitten is found.

Using classic games and pranks, you can give Halloween back a little more of the fun-loving and

ever-so-faintly-malicious spirit it once had. Of course, you don’t want to go too far, as did the woman

who chose Halloween to give a bank teller a note reading, “Trick or treat. Give me $2,000 or see

what kind of treat you’ll get.” And even moving outhouses can have its risks: In Iowa, the owner of

one targeted outhouse tricked some “vicious small boys” at their own game by moving the outhouse

before they did. As the boys sneaked up in the dark to play their prank, there was an abrupt whoop

and a splash, and, almost as if he were a ghost, one of their number disappeared

DO YOU KNOW?

For Halloween, American candy manufacturers produce

approximately twenty million pounds of candy corn each

year. That’s 8.3 billion kernels.

OLD FASHIONED GAMES AND PRANKS (continued)

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MAKING SCARY SOUNDS

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Sometimes, Halloween just happens to land on a beautiful day. Curses! Don’t let a little sunshine

spoil your fun; you can brew your own storm at home and make it as thunderous as you like. In

the chart below are a few examples of how ordinary domestic items can be used to transform your

house into one teeming with poltergeists. Once you’ve mastered a few sound effects, you can use

them to create a soundtrack for scary storytelling (enlist the help of a partner who can work behind

the scenes) or tape-record your repertoire and plan on turning up the volume when trick-or-treaters

come knocking. Supplement with the Bach Fugue in D Minor and your best werewolf howl, and you

may even scare up some real ghosts.

Crinkle a piece of cellophane or waxed paper

to mimic a crackling ﬂ ame. For large ﬁ res,

use several sheets—and several pairs of hands.

Fold a sheet of waxed paper over a comb. Hum,

or blow softly with your lips against the paper-

covered teeth for a howling wind.

Use a drinking straw to blow bubbles at the

surface of a glass of water. Vary the rhythm of the

bubbles to bring the slimy bog eerily to life.

Pour dry, uncooked rice into a metal tray or

baking pan. Vary the speed for realistic-sounding

rain, and accompany with thunder.

Grasp one side of a sheet of poster board; shake

hard to make a thunderclap, and then taper off for

distant, echoing rumbles.

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HALLOWEEN GLOSSARY

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HALLOWEEN GLOSSARY

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