Halloween Party Food: Fun and Sophisticated

Halloween party food can be really fun to make and even more entertaining to serve. It’s that time of year when you can make your food look absolutely unappetizing and people will still want to eat it. Children love the thrill of eating what they think is dismembered body parts and ordinary food that has been dyed fun colors.

If you don’t want your Halloween party food to be silly or look disgusting then you can still have a sophisticated menu that has touches of this scary holiday. Whichever direction you choose to go in, here are some Halloween party food recipes and ideas to help inspire you.

Silly Foods for Children

With children’s Halloween party food you can indulge your inner child and crank up the scare factor. Make scary ice cubes for the punch by freezing gummy worms into ice cubes. Gummy worms are a great addition to party food at this time of year and another way to use them is in ‘rotten apples’. Take regular apples and cut a hole in the apple that is deep enough for you to stick a gummy worm into.

For a more substantial impact, make hard boiled eggs and cut them into halves after peeling. Take the yolks out and then fill the hole with cream cheese. Then press olives with pimentos, pimento side up, into the cream cheese and voila! You have an eyeball. To add to the effect you can draw blood vessels by dragging a toothpick that’s been dipped in red food dye through the ‘white’ of your new eyeball.

Mature Foods for Adults

For adult Halloween party food stick to using seasonal ingredients and rely on keeping the theme black and orange. Pumpkin soup with a scary ornament at the bottom of the soup bowl is a wonderful starter. A salad that includes roasted sweet potato chips is also another way to inject a little seasonal color into your menu. For your dessert you can’t go wrong with a bittersweet chocolate tart or perhaps black velvet cake with touches of orange in the frosting.

If you want to have a buffet style party, keep the food simple and concentrate on the décor instead. Use spider webs and black velvet for tablecloths, candles in wine bottles and simple hanging decorations to create the effect of a dining room in a haunted mansion. Use appropriate Halloween centerpieces such as a candy dish filled with eyeballs or dark flowers.

Halloween can open up all kinds of creative portals in your cooking or create opportunity for children to cook. Remember, if you stick to traditional orange and black Halloween colors and scary decorations, your food can be ordinary party food. The décor is enough to create the atmosphere and you can always have fun with that!