I used to love those plastic vampire teeth when I was a kid. Of course, this was before we had the technology to make them glow in the dark. They were just white. I think if I had glow in the dark ones I would have warn them all year round and not just around Halloween.

This recipe comes from CupcakeRecipe.net, and it's for Punk Glow in the Dark Halloween Cupcakes. She takes two flat-topped cupcakes, lots of icing, a jelly bean, and those white fangs to create a rather wild looking punk rock vampire cupcake. And Punk Rock Vampire Cupcake would make for an awesome band name.

I love pumpkins, but I always find it a waste to carve them into Jack o' Lanterns. The big pumpkins aren't that good to eat anyway, but even if you get the cute small sugar pie pumpkins, carve them up, and let them sit out in the open air on your front porch for two weeks, you have to throw them away when you're all done. The better thing to do is to decorate pumpkins in a way that you can eat them later. Painting faces on them is fine, but messy and requires time and creativity. Now I'm not saying you're not creative, but there is that time issue.

Thankfully, you can just pick up some Halloween "costumes" for your pumpkins, a la Mr. Potato Head. All of the costume pieces are pushed into the pumpkin, the same way you push them into Mr. Potato Head. These are made specifially for pumpkins, since they're bigger than the toy, but if you're dressing up smaller pumpkins, nothing's stopping you from nabbing your kids' toys out of the playroom and using them!

The Pirate, R2D2, and other "costumes" are available on Amazon.

There are lots of ways to adorn desserts for the Halloween table -- colored frosting and sprinkles, spider web artistry with icing, or crafting little Halloween shapes like spiders and dismembered hands out of candy.

That's all a lot of effort, and you certainly don't have that kind of time when you've got a Sexy Chef costume to put on!

Instead, you can turn to pre-formed Halloween shapes that are made from marzipan. Dean and Deluca has little Skull Boy, Pumpkin Head, and Nosferatu monsters. They also make Dracula, Frankenstein, and a very cute little white ghost. Gravestones and witches' hats from Marzipan World are a great addition to the top of a cake.

This recipe is rather complex, since you're not just making the cupcake itself but also cherry filling and marshmallow topping, but the effect you get looks like it's worth it.

I wonder if there's another way to do this. Maybe a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade way. Perhaps getting cupcakes from the store and putting white frosting on them and then putting the holes on top with the red dripping from the holes. Nah, just go ahead and make them at the link above. The recipe makes 18 cupcakes, which is a good amount for a party or for your family.

And as a bonus, when you bite into them it looks even more bloody inside!

[via Boing Boing]

It can't be all hard liquor at your Halloween party -- not that you don't plan to sip martinis all night, but some of your guests might prefer beer or wine. For the beer drinkers at your Halloween party, there's Post Road Pumpkin Ale.
Each batch of beer is made from hundreds of pounds of pumpkins, which create an orangey amber-colored beer with a pumpkin fragrance. The Pumpkin Ale is available for about $9.

Now here's a tip for chilling and serving that Pumpkin Ale. Get your hands on the largest pumpkin you can find, top it off, hollow it out, clean it, then fill with ice. It's a pumpkin cooler!

There are plenty of recipes floating around out there for Halloween-themed cocktails (like the Mad Eye Martini that Bob posted about), but I am betting that many of them are candy- or chocolate flavored, which means they will be full of cream and sugar.

I don't do that.

However, I am not entirely opposed to what I've been calling "caketails" for years. This weekend, I'll be keeping it pretty simple with the Modern Spirits vodka in Pumpkin Spice flavor to serve "pumpkin pie" in a glass. The flavor is already in the vodka, so it'll be just fine to chill and pour straight up. No mixing necessary. Of course, to make it even spicier, you could also add a splash of Modern Spirits' Candied Ginger flavor, too.

Since Halloween is now a holiday as much for adults as it is kids, here's something for the grown-ups to drink when the kids are in bed with stomach aches from eating so much Halloween food and candy.

It's the Mad Eye Martini, from Hpnotiq. It's cool because blue cocktails always look great, and it also has an eyeball in it! The eyeball is made from a lychee, though I wonder if you could use something else for the eyeball if you don't have that.

This is finger food.

Literally.

From Boston.com (adapted from CDKitchen), a recipe for Frightful Finger Cookies are perfect to serve at a Halloween-themed party )and freak your guests out). I think they're almond-flavored, considering the recipe includes almond extract and almond slivers. The slivers are for the fingernails, by the way.

When I hear "tarte tatin," naturally I think of an apple dessert. However, in a recipe by Regina Schrambling that was originally published in 2003 and just re-printed in this past Wednesday's LA Times Food section, tarte tatin goes savory. Not only does it go savory, but the inverted tart uses pumpkin to create an appetizer (or meal, if you add some other dishes). If you're having a Halloween-themed dinner party and want to keep it more adult, i.e. staying away from orange food coloring and gelatin-molded brains, the Pumpkin Tarte Tatin is a great addition to the menu. Basically, you place wedges of sugar pumpkin in the bottom of a skillet, sprinkle with goat cheese, cover with pie crust (of puff pastry), bake, then invert onto a plate to serve.

The full recipe is available at LA Times.

The elementary school I attended through 3rd grade had a Halloween parade each year. We'd come to school dressed in our costumes. Around lunchtime parents would arrive with treats, we'd eat our lunches and then gorge ourselves on cupcakes, mini-sized candy bars, frosted cookies in the shape of pumpkins and my mom's popcorn balls.

She never really followed a recipe for them, instead would just pop several large batches of corn and pour it into a large paper grocery bag. On the stove, she'd melt a stick of butter together with honey and brown sugar until it was a sticky syrup. She'd put the bag on several layers of newspaper on the kitchen floor and pour the butter/honey/sugar combination over the top. Working quickly, she'd grab a handful of popcorn and quickly mold it into balls, which would get laid out on a greased cookie sheet. When the balls were cool, we'd pack them in plastic sandwich bags and tie off the tops with curled ribbon.

(If you want a more specific recipe, with measurements and cooking times, check out this link).

Photo link

I know, I know, but how can I resist posting something about Halloween that has the word GHOUL right in the name (with a slight change in spelling, of course).

This is from the October issue of Bon Appetit. It's a lighter twist on the usual Hungarian stew, made with turkey and pumpkin. This is a rather unique dish that I bet a lot of people would be interested in trying. Full recipe after the jump.

Here's a cookie recipe to get you in the mood for Halloween (side note: isn't it interesting how, in the past 10 years or so, Halloween has become a massive holiday for adults?). They're Dulce De Leche Bat Cookies, from Martha Stewart Living.

The recipe calls for an aspic cutter to make the bat shape. I've never used an aspic cutter before, but if Martha says you have to...

Conveniently, even if it isn't Halloween, these cookies would be good for your next Batman-themed party.

I've never carved a pumpkin before. I'm more of a "just buy a pumpkin and put it somewhere" type of guy. But I've always been impressed by people who can carve a pumpkin. People who have the eye to make it look good and the patience to work with the tools. It's not an easy thing to do.

HGTV.com has a bunch of templates (in PDF form) that you can use when you carve your pumpkin for Halloween. These aren't just your typical boring faces, but various laughing faces and smirking faces, as well as a black cat, a ghost, moon and star shapes and retro flowers.

They also have instructions on how to make a Halloween banner for your porch or party room.

I'll usually think of any excuse to eat pizza. New episode of my favorite TV show is on tonight? I'll order a pizza! Won $50? Order a pizza! Arbor Day? Pizza time!

So Halloween is just a perfect a night as any other to have some pizza. This one from Betty Crocker you make yourself. The giant slab of cheese in spider-shapes placed on top of each slice gives it that Halloween look. Maybe you can add some black olives so it really looks Halloweeny.*

Note: you'll need Halloween cookie cutters for this recipe, unless you're really handy with a knife.

*Halloweeny?

You could go the Sandra Lee way and adorn your "tablescape" with black plastic spiders from the craft store.

Or you can use this little tip from Sunset Magazine for making something useful. Make your spider decorations edible!

Slice black oiives in half length-wise to make "bodies." Slice some of those halves again length-wise to make four "legs." Obviously, these spiders will only work if your putting them onto something that can "anchor" them, like Sunset Mag did on deviled eggs.

I wouldn't try olive spiders on cupcakes.

[Thanks, Sara!]