Tricks for easy Halloween treats

Will you be turning off the lights and hiding behind the sofa when the neighbours' kids come knocking, or will you be dressing up and joining in? Tasteless is the new scary, apparently, and while Miley Cyrus' twerking outfits are taking this Halloween by storm, I prefer the 'pregnant schoolgirl' costume which I read about in a list of what not to wear this year. Here are a few tricks for some easy, last-minute Halloween treats which are certainly not tasteless...

Easiest of all, arm yourself with a packet or two of plastic flies and use them to adorn some cakes. The more delicious the cake, the greater the yuk factor.

If savoury's your thing, chow down on Dead Man's Fingers

Or whip up a batch of Rice Krispie Halloween cookies

Pumpkin - it's almost good enough to eat!

If you didn't get round to carving your pumpkins yesterday - cook them. 

Chicken-in-a-pumpkin!

Chicken in a Pumpkin

(Stolen, with thanks, from Josceline Dimbleby)

You will need:
A large pumpkin, top cut off and seeds and gunk removed, leaving firm orange flesh
A 3 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
8 cardamom pods
1-2 fresh green chillies
8 skinless chicken breasts
4oz butter
20 oz onions, thinly sliced
6-8 cloves garlic, crushed
4oz button mushrooms, halved
2oz plain flour
3/4 pint milk

Heat oven to gas 9/240 degrees. Extract the seeds from the cardamom pods and grind them in a pestle and mortar. Chop the chilli/es and cut the chicken into 1cm slices. Melt 3/4 of the butter and cook the onions in it until soft. Add the ginger, cardamom, chillies and garlic and remaining butter. When the butter has melted stir in the sliced chicken and mushrooms. Stir in the flour well and gradually add the milk, continuing to stir until it comes to the boil (don't overdo the milk - it should be thick). Season. Spoon it into the prepared pumpkin, put the top back on, and smear with vegetable oil. Cook for 30 minutes, then lower the heat to gas 4/180 degrees and cook for about another 75 minutes. To serve, scoop out some of the pumpkin flesh with the chicken.

This will amaze, delight and impress your friends, and will win over the staunchest of pumpkin-haters!

Cannibalistic kitchen capers

Tell your children you found an intruder in the house, cut off his fingers, gouged out his eyeballs... and that's what they're going to eat.

Dead man's hand

Dead Man's Fingers

Frankfurter sausages
Finger rolls (ha ha ha)
A radish or 2
Ketchup
Heat the frankfurters (microwave, or in a pan of boiling water), cut each roll in half and poke a hole in the non-cut end with the handle of a wooden spoon. Squirt in some ketchup and insert half a frankfurter. Cut a little bit off the end of the sausage to make a bed for the nail which you will have fashioned from a slice of radish.

Eyeball cakes

Eyeball cakes

I took 2 eggs and weighed them - 130g. I creamed together 130g sugar and 130g margarine, added the eggs, and folded in 130g self raising flour and a bit of vanilla extract. I baked them in bun tins for about 30 minutes at 180/gas until perfectly cake shaped and smelling delicious. Allow them to cool. Meanwhile, mix together some icing sugar and a little bit of hot water until you have a paste. Spread it on the cakes, draw veins with red writing icing and put a chocolate button in the middle.