Wickedly Good

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There’s plenty out there that’s terrifying this Halloween season, and ghouls, goblins and witches (oh, my!) aren’t the half of it. It’s a good time, it seems, to gather family and friends into the comforting sanctuary of the home.

Which is not to say you have to give up the ghost of Halloween entirely. Instead of taking the shortcut of running by your neighborhood megawarehouse to pick up the same old mini-quiches and cocktail meatballs, be creative and whip up some amusing — and surprisingly simple — seasonally themed treats.

Sherry Alexander, coordinator at the city of Las Vegas’ Cimmaron-Rose Community Center, said the secret to a good Halloween party is having fun — "being a kid yourself. Just be involved and happy, because the kids will take the lead of what the adult is doing."

Maggie Pallan, who partners with Malinda Kolias in the Two Chefs to Go catering and personal-chef business, caters an annual Halloween party for — somewhat ironically — a local pediatric dentist. She likes to make a ghoulish green punch with ice cubes made with gummy worms inserted in them; as the cubes melt, the worms are released into the bowl. Or, for a white grape and apple punch, she takes canned lychees and stuffs them with frozen blueberries to look like eyeballs.

"Do that in a big punch bowl so they can fish those eyeballs out, because they like to eat them," she said.

Pallan said Kolias pipes legs and eyes onto chocolate pecan tartlets to transform them into minitartlet spiders.

She also suggests serving dips (or soups or stews) in hollowed-out pumpkins. To more easily hollow the pumpkin, she said, put it, whole, into a 400-degree oven for 30 minutes, after which "seeds scoop out effortlessly."

Part of the secret of a festive party, Pallan said, is to name foods so that they’ll be identified with Halloween; thus petite corn dogs become deep-fried rat tails, and pulled pork loin in barbecue sauce becomes barbecued brains.

Alexander has transformed hot dogs into Witch Wanda’s Fingers by putting candy corn on the ends of them to look like fingers with fingernails. The classic ants on a log — peanut-butter-stuffed celery sticks topped with raisins — are another seasonal hit, as is a punch bowl of blue Kool-Aid with dry-ice mist for atmosphere.

Shapes are important, Alexander said; even a regular sandwich is transformed into party fare if it’s cut with a cookie cutter to form a pumpkin shape.

Erin Coburn, coordinator at the city of Las Vegas’ Veterans Memorial Leisure Services, has done the infamous Kitty Litter Cake. Directions for this one abound online, but basically it’s a white cake and a spice cake, prepared, crumbled and mixed with whipped topping and served in a clean, new litter box with reshaped Tootsie Rolls (soften in the microwave first) and served with a clean, new litter scoop.

Coburn also takes chocolate-coated shortbread cookies, adheres a marshmallow in the center of the chocolate side, lets kids use decorator icing to make a witch’s face on the side of the marshmallow and tops it with a chocolate kiss adhered to another cookie, with maybe a bow and ribbon made with decorator icing. (A simpler treat can be made by creating the hat alone.)

"Dirt" cups — pudding with crushed Oreos on top, and gummy worms inserted — are always good, she said, as are Frankenstein pots, in which kids decorate terra cotta pots with the faces of Frankenstein’s monster and fill them with cookies.

For a witch cake, frost a round layer green and add a chocolate-frosted square layer trimmed to resemble a hat; use rolled fruit rollups for hair, and cut-out rollups for the face, she said. For a pumpkin cake, turn a Bundt cake upside down, frost with orange icing and add features, then use green licorice to make vines (or bake two cake mixes in heat-proof bowls, then sandwich them together and frost). And for Mummy Dogs, she said, wrap hot dogs or cocktail hot dogs with refrigerated dough cut into strips and wrap them to resemble mummies.

Stephen Hopcraft, executive chef of Seablue at MGM Grand, said he and his wife like to coat crab apples (small sour apples) with caramel to make minicrab apples, noting that the sour taste contrasts particularly well with the caramel.

Catherine Margles, owner/director of the Creative Cooking School, said pre-formed caramel-apple wraps are available in grocery stores; "just put a stick in it, add some chopped-up walnuts, you’ve got yourself a candied apple," she said. Margles also noted that manufacturers of slice-and-bake cookie dough do Halloween-themed designs at this time of year.

Purchase fake fingers, she suggested, and use them as cocktail stirrers in Bloody Marys or Vampire Martinis for the grownups.

For more ideas, check the Internet and feel free to adapt them to suit your tastes and available time.

Here’s another recipe for a seasonal treat, from Debbie Mitchell, pastry chef at Treasure Island.

PUMPKIN BROWNIES

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons pumpkin-pie spice

1/2 cup fine granulated sugar

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

16 ounces solid-pack pure canned pumpkin

1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix all dry ingredients, then add liquids and nuts. Mix well, then turn into a 16-by-12-inch pan and bake at 350 degrees 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.