HALLOWEEN TREATS

I must admit I have never celebrated Halloween before moving to Australia.  When I was a child, we did not have Halloween in Italy.  We used to celebrate the 2^nd of November which is “All Souls Day” (or “il giorno dei morti” as we call it).  That’s the day we remember our loved ones who have passed away and visit their graves at the cemetery.  Halloween is not a traditional feast in Italy, it is something we “imported” from the USA.  It started to become more popular around the time I went to high school, but by then I was already too old to get really interested into the trick or treat thing.  Last year though, things changed.  We had a Halloween party for the kids of the area at the local park, followed by some trick or treating and the children had a blast.  I must admit that it was a lot of fun.  This is the only occasion that kids get to “dress up” here.  In Italy we have Carnevale and that is when we all dress up and play tricks on people and it has always been one of my favourite times of the year.  I really miss it here.  So I guess Halloween is the closest my kids will ever get to Carnevale.

This year I thought of preparing some treats for the event.  I had lots of ideas but they all involved a lot of work and I really did not have much free time, as after coming back from New Caledonia things got pretty hectic around here.  So, I settled for something quick and easy that will still impress all your Halloween guests.

While searching for inspiration I found these marshmallow monsters from The Decorated Cookie and I thought they looked great!  They are so easy to make… just insert a lollypop stick into a marshmallow and draw a face with an edible ink pen.  That’s all.  Don’t they look cute?

I really like the ghost theme… so I decided to make some ghosts using strawberries.  I dipped them in white chocolate and decorated them with some with icing (I used Queen Writing Icing and Gels).

Last, but not least, I made marzipan pumpkins.  I have made some marzipan because it is traditionally gifted and eaten in Sicily for All Souls Day and I wanted to keep the tradition alive.  I have used the recipe for Martorana and I added some yellow and red food colouring to get the orange for the pumpkin.  Then I made some small balls (the size of a golf ball) and made some indentations using a clay tool (but a toothpick works just as well).  Then I gently pressed them down from the top with my index finger and inserted a clove to make the pumpkin stem.

Let them dry for 1 hour and then decorate them with icing.

Enjoy!!!

Manu

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