#Solution: Why not do some super-easy toxic waste or some Frankensteins or pumpkins!
No, I’m not going to go all Pinteresty on you – well, maybe just a little, but I’m going to call this “Pinterest for the time deprived” because I’ve dug up some very very simple Halloween treats that will make you look like a star – with very little time spent.
It all starts with a rice crispy treat. How easy is that? We’ve all wowed our kids with cooking this one up – it’s the classic three-ingredient treat that takes all of 10 minutes to prepare. And then a few more minutes to decorate. But EASY decorate. Not up-all-night-trying-to-create-intricate-details decorate.
Rice Crispy Treats:
What you need:
– 1/4 cup butter
– 4 cups marshmallows
– 5 cups Rice Krispie Cereal (name brand or generic)
What you do:
In a large pot on medium heat melt the butter. Add the marshmallows and start stirring until they all melt. When they’re gooey and melted add the cereal, remove from heat and keep stirring.
This stuff will be pretty hot at the start but cools fairly quickly and is easy to form into balls or pour into a large greased baking pan to cool.
They’re a great base for a whole lot of treat ideas – it’s all in the decoration with these:
1. Ghosts: icing, chocolate chips
Take the cooling crispy concoction and form it into lumps. Tall lumps, fat lumps – this one isn’t fussy. Using an icing tube, pipe on two big blob dots for eyeballs and then pipe in little black pupils or use mini chocolate chips for the pupils, it works too. (You can do the easy thing and buy one black and one white tube of icing or you can mix up a quick batch of one cup icing: 2 cups powdered sugar plus 1/4 cup butter, 1 tbsp milk beaten till firm, add food colouring to achieve colour.)
The mini chocolate chip makes this even easier. All about the easy!
2. Frankenstein: food colouring, icing, chocolate chips
You’re going to add some green food colouring at the melting marshmallow/adding rice cereal phase. When the gooey mess is all blended and the colour is of your liking, pour into a greased baking pan to let cool. Cut into rectangles – these can be large or small to accommodate the number you’d like to serve.
With icing, pipe on Frankie’s hair at the top, the eyeballs – same as the ghosts – and a stitched mouth: one horizontal line and then 4 or 5 randomly spaced short vertical lines. The less tidy, the better the effect.
3. Pumpkins: food colouring, chocolate nubs or pretzel pieces, icing
Add orange food colouring at the marshmallow/adding rice cereal phase. When the gooey mess is all blended and the colour of your liking, form them into balls. Chunky balls, not perfectly round – flatten them a bit. You can press the vertical ridges in with your fingers or with a toothpick pressed long-ways against your ball, vertically – though it’s not necessary. Leave them a little lumpy, it will look fine. Finish these by creating the stem on top. A chunky piece of broken pretzel works well, or if you prefer, you can break pieces off of a chocolate bar to create little nub-sized chunks and press them into place.
For those who want to take this a bit further (you over-achievers, you!), you can pipe on some black icing triangle eyes and mouth for a Jack-o-lantern effect.
4. Confetti: sprinkles, melted chocolate, food colouring, Halloween sprinkles, ghoulishly cute straws
This one’s the simplest and ends up looking super cute. You can colour the crispies – or not. You can form them into fun shapes or balls or just cool them in a pan and cut into rectangles – the shapes get popped on the end of a stick/straw. You can partially or fully dip the treats into the melted chocolate – white chocolate shows the colours better but regular chocolate is fine too. Gently shake off the excess chocolate and lay treats on a cookie sheet lined with foil, parchment or cling wrap, covered in sprinkles. Add another layer of sprinkles and turn, coating all sides. You can also dip into a container of sprinkles, though this can get messier. You can do a light coating of sprinkles or go for full saturation. This one is fun to play with and nothing has to be uniform.
Go with the orange, white and black sprinkle mix, or go fancy with bone sprinkles or skull sprinkles or even spider sprinkles if you dare. There are a lot of options out there – some are easier to find than others.
4. Coloured treats: food colouring
I’m saving the easiest for last. Simple coloured treats. Make mock candy corn triangles with yellow and orange. Colour them green and call them Toxic Waste. Colour them orange and call them Pumpkin Bombs. Colour them black and call them Coffin Crispies. I always title the creations I send to school, it’s become half the fun of baking for those sales and parties!
Happy Halloween! Don’t eat too much of the kids’ candy.
LOL – who am I kidding? Go to town on that candy, you’ve more than earned it in the last 365 days!
