Three frightfully fun recipes for Halloween
Jan Kohler, a mother of three, an entrepreneur, author, and home-chef from Dunkeld in Johannesburg, has creatively come up with a few fun Halloween recipes.
We picked our favorite three that we will no doubt be trying. They’re super easy and make for the perfect party treats.
Oh and she has also launched a book called Pink Gin and Fairy Cakes, which also has some yummy festive Christmas recipes.
1. Monster Pops
Makes 14 pops
Ingredients
1 vanilla sponge cake (which you can bake or buy)
Cake pop sticks or skewers
For the butter icing:
100g of butter, softened
250g of icing sugar
25ml of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
For the chocolate candy coating:
200g white melting chocolate, chocolate discs or “Candy Melts” (or white chocolate)
Half a teaspoons of white vegetable fat.
Powdered food colouring.
Method
In a bowl, crumble the vanilla sponge cake by hand.
Make a batch of butter icing by creaming softened butter with a hand-held blender until it’s smooth and creamy. Start adding the icing sugar in small amounts, along with the milk and vanilla essence, mixing in between, until it’s all blended in.
Combine the icing with the crumbed cake and roll the cake mixture into small balls in using the palm of your hands. Insert the sticks, place these on a greased tray and pop them into the freezer, preferably overnight. Freezing helps to firm up the cake pops which makes them much easier to work with.
When you’re ready to decorate them, melt the chocolate in a double boiler – which could be a heatproof bowl placed over a pot of shallow boiling water – ensuring that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir frequently to ensure that the chocolate is melting evenly, and when you have a few small chunks left, remove this from the heat completely as residual heat will continue to melt the rest. Stir in the vegetable fat. At this point, add the colouring if you’re going to use any. Allow the chocolate to cool off slightly, for about 5 minutes, before you begin to coat the cake pops.
Take your cake pops out of the freezer and then, one by one, spoon melted chocolate over them, twisting and turning the cake pop as you go to ensure an even coating. The vegetable fat contributes to a smooth finish and hardens up nicely, and while this is of great benefit, you need to act quickly if you’re going to add any decorations to the cake pop. You want them to stick before the chocolate hardens. Decorate your cake pops as desired and stand them up to dry by sticking them into a block of florists’ foam (oasis) or a polystyrene block.
2. Poison Apples and Black Brittle
Ingredients
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of water
1/3 cup of golden syrup
Half a teaspoon of white vinegar
A couple of drops of black gel food colouring
Method
To make the candy, combine all the ingredients (reserving the food colouring) in a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar begins to melt. Turn down the heat and allow it to simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring only occasionally. To test whether it has reached the right temperature, you can use a sugar thermometer or the traditional method. If you have a thermometer, turn off the heat once the syrup has reached 150°C. If you don’t, drop a bit of the syrup into a glass of cold water and if it forms a solid ball, it is ready to use. Stir in some black gel food colouring until you get the desired colour.
For the toffee apples I prefer to use Granny Smith apples as they are firm but you can use whichever kind you like. It’s very important to thoroughly wash and dry the apples before you start coating them, as any waxiness will stop the candy from sticking to the apple. Insert a skewer into the apple and then dip it into the syrup, twisting so that the entire apple is evenly coated. You can also use a spoon to get to any parts of the apple that are hard to reach. Once well coated, you can place them down a sheet of baking paper and allow them to harden.
With any leftover syrup, you can make black peanut brittle. Depending on how much you have left, add a few handfuls of peanuts and raisins to the pot and stir. If you’d like to make peanut brittle bars, pour the mixture into a greased and lined baking pan and cut it up before it hardens too much. To make peanut brittle clusters, allow the syrup to cool slightly so that you can handle them, and then roll into balls in the palm of your hands. These make a great addition to my spooky Halloween cheese board!
3. Black Potion Cocktail
Ingredients
1 tot of Black Sambuca (15ml)
1 tot of classic gin (15ml)
1 can of tonic water
Raspberries, blueberries and liquorice bits to garnish
Method
In a cocktail glass, pour the sambuca and gin over ice and top up with a tonic of your choice. Garnish with fruit like raspberry or blueberries or even some chopped liquorice bits.
For a pitch black Gin, drop some black gel food colouring on the end of a cocktail skewer and stir it in.
P.S Jan has launched a book called Pink Gin and Fairy Cakes, which also has some yummy festive Christmas recipes.
To order visit www.jankohlercooks.com
Follow her @jan_kohler_cooks
