Here's a Witch Hat softened with the charm of chocolate to lessen the creepy shape's menace. This sweet treat is easily made with an ice-cream cone set on a doughnut.
There are plenty of delightfully dreadful ideas in Better Homes and Gardens magazines's Halloween Tricks and Treats , including decorations, costumes, party plans and even ghost stories.
There are also recipes and enough photos of the concoctions to entertain Halloween fans of all ages.
Here's a Witch Hat, for example, that against all the odds charms with its chocolate flavor.
It's made from an ice cream cone dripping with chocolate coating. The pointed headgear sports a hatband of colorful candy-coated gum squares, and the base is a doughnut.
Witch Hat
2 ounces semisweet chocolate
Chocolate-rolled sugar ice-cream cone
Candy pumpkins
Waxed paper
Purchased unfrosted plain or chocolate-cake doughnut
Canned chocolate icing
Nonpareils or sprinkles
Orange, yellow and green Starburst candy or candy-coated gum (mini-Chiclets work well)
Melt semisweet chocolate according to the package instructions. Holding the open end of the cone, dip the bottom half at an angle into the melted chocolate.
Immediately press candy pumpkins into the chocolate.
Place the cone on waxed paper and let sit until the chocolate sets.
Frost the top and side surfaces of the doughnut with icing. Sprinkle the icing with nonpareils or sprinkles.
Center the open end of the cone on the frosted doughnut.
Use a sharp knife to cut candies or gum pieces into quarters and stick them around the bottom of the hat with icing.
Makes one hat.
Source: Recipe from "Halloween Tricks and Treats" (Meredith Creative Collection Publications, $5.99)
.... And either are cookies
Gwen Willhite, founder of the online cookie purveyor Cookies by Design, offers suggestions for do-it-yourself Halloween cookie decorating:
-- Make sugar cookies and cut into creative shapes, paying special attention to the thickness to ensure cookies won't crumble.
(You can also order plain cookies from the supermarket bakery.)
-- Whip up (or buy) icing in several colors: orange, black, red, green, brown and white.
Fill baggies with icing and snip off a corner to create an easy-to-hold bag.
-- What's a spider cookie without black licorice legs, or a witch's face without little candy eyeballs? Chocolate chips make great warts or noses, candy corn is perfect for jack-o'-lanterns, sanding sugars or edible glitter add sparkle, and Red Hots make great blood.
(For ideas on decorating Halloween cupcakes, click on sptimes.com/kitchen for the latest installment of "In Janet's Kitchen," hosted by St. Petersburg Times food editor Janet K. Keeler.)
