Halloween party: Cold spooky buffet or creative Halloween dinner?

Whether you set up a colorful self-serve Halloween buffet or serve several spooky courses served depends entirely on how you Halloween party plan. At a party with many children it's unlikely that the little guests will sit at the table for long. Generally they'd rather run around and play instead and refuel with a few tasty snacks in between. The most practical solution in that case is a creative spooky buffet, because you can prepare the recipes conveniently in advance and also serve the dishes as practical finger food. If the costumed monsters, witches and vampires get hungry during the party, they can quickly dash to the buffet and grab a tasty snack. 

Whether it's a cold buffet or an elaborate dinner, the right preparation is essential. Think in good time before the Halloween party about what you want to serve and which ingredients you need. Look for Halloween recipes and of course ask your child if they have any requests. Afterwards you can write your shopping lists and go shopping so that you have all the important ingredients at home and are well prepared for the spooky night.

Hot pick-me-ups: recipes for the Halloween party

If you still want to serve something warm at the children's party, a soup or warm finger food is suitable, which you can offer as addition to the buffet in between. Here are a few delicious recipe ideas:

• Slurp soup: Cook a noodle soup with glass noodles instead of soup noodles and color it with soy sauce or red food coloring. That way the little ghosts and witches can slurp a tasty soup in between and the spooky atmosphere is preserved.

• Flutter burgers: Prepare hamburgers and insert bat wings cut from cheese slices on the left and right between the bun halves. At the front you can stick a bat head made from a cucumber slice and draw eyes with ketchup.

• Monster pizza: Simply roll out small round pizzas, spread them with tomato sauce and decorate the pizzas spookily. Pearl onions, olives or cherry tomatoes are the eyes; you can cut mouths and fangs from corn, peppers or salami slices. For an extra scary effect, sprinkle grated cheese as monster hair on the edge – bake and you're done!

• Pumpkin soup: What would Halloween be without pumpkins? If you carve a pumpkin for the Halloween decorations a pumpkin carving, there will be tasty flesh left over that you can use to make a soup. You can find many recipes online! The pumpkin soup becomes a real eye-catcher if you decorate it with spooky mozzarella eyes. Slice olives and place them on the mini mozzarellas – into the soup with them and you'll have a creepy eye-soup.

Simple Halloween recipes for the cold spooky buffet

Even at the buffet, the tasty food can look spookily beautiful so that the snacks can instantly put a smile on the faces of the little party guests. We have gathered a few ghostly Halloween recipes for the spooky buffet gathered:

Recipe: tasty mummy sausages

You need:

• 15 sausages

• 1 sheet of puff pastry

• some mustard/ketchup

• a toothpick/skewer 

How to: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Cut the dough into thin strips.  

3. Wrap the sausages with the dough strips, leaving a small area free for the face.  

4. Bake the sausages with dough for about 10 to 12 minutes. 

5. Let cool and use wooden sticks and ketchup or mustard to draw small eyes.  

6. The creepy mummy sausages are ready!

Recipe: spooky banana ghosts

You need:

• popsicle sticks

• bananas

• chocolate coating of your choice 

How to: 

1. Cut the bananas in half. 

2. Stick the banana halves on popsicle sticks, place them on a plate and keep them in the fridge during the next step.  

3. Melt the coating. Dip the cooled bananas into the coating and put them in the fridge to cool.  

4. Once the chocolate has set, the little ghosts can be decorated with more coating (eyes and mouth). 

5. The banana ghosts are ready – perfect as finger food!

Healthy snack idea:

You can also omit the coating and dip the bananas in yoghurt. Just freeze them and you'll have a healthy alternative to sweets – no baking required. Another idea to offer kids fruit as a spooky snack is pumpkin mandarins. Simply peel the mandarins and draw a Halloween face on them with chocolate coating – and the little pumpkins are ready!

Recipe: creepy chocolate kiss monsters

You need:

• chocolate kisses

• food coloring or chocolate coating

• skewers / toothpicks for decorating

How to: 

1. Paint spooky faces on the chocolate kisses with food coloring or coating. 

2. Done! 

Sweet Halloween recipes: spider muffins, bone cookies & more.

Sweets are always popular with children. Until the little ghosts, vampires and monsters eat the homemade baked goods, imaginatively decorated muffins and cookies are also a great table decoration. You can prepare your favorite muffin recipes or a basic shortcrust dough for cookie cutters and make small spooky masterpieces . We've put together a few ideas compiled:

Recipe: eerie spider muffins

You need for the batter:

• muffin cups

• 100 g sugar

• 100 g flour

• 2 eggs

• 100 ml cooking oil

• 1 tbsp cocoa powder

• 100 ml milk

• 1 packet vanilla sugar

• ½ packet baking powder

• 50 g dark chocolate 

You need for decorating:

• dark chocolate coating

• chocolate sprinkles

• licorice or gummy snakes

• sugar eyes  

How to: 

1. Preheat oven to 170°C top/bottom heat. 

2. Put eggs, sugar, oil, milk and vanilla sugar into a bowl and mix well.  

3. Carefully stir in flour, baking powder and cocoa gradually.  

4. Chop the chocolate at the end and fold it in.  

5. Fill the batter into muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes.  

6. Let cool.  

7. Melt the coating.  

8. Brush the muffins with the coating and then dip them into the chocolate sprinkles.  

9. Let the sprinkles dry a bit.  

10. Now cut the licorice into about 4 cm long strips and glue them to the muffin as legs with a bit of coating.  

11. Attach the eyes with some coating. 

12. Let cool well. 

Our tip: If you don't want to use licorice or gummy snakes as legs, you can dip pretzel sticks in coating and use those as legs.  

Skull muffins

Cover baked muffins with icing and paint skull eyes, nose and mouth with brown or black food coloring. 

Mummy muffins

Roll out white ready-to-roll fondant (alternatively marzipan kneaded with icing sugar) and cut into thin strips. Lay the strips in irregular layers on the muffin so it looks like the wrapped layers of a mummy. Stick two chocolate candies as mummy eyes between the bandage layers.

Ghost cookies and spooky party favors

Homemade cookies are quick to make and can be shaped and decorated individually. If you don't want to buy special Halloween cookie cutters in specialist or online shops, you can cut shapes from the rolled-out dough with a knife. Packed in small clear bags, the baked goods also make a pretty party favor for the Halloween party.

Basic dough recipe

• 250 g flour with

• 1 pinch baking powder

• 80 g sugar

• 1 packet vanilla sugar,

• 1 pinch salt

• 150 g softened butter

• knead and let rest in the fridge for 2 hours

• Dust with flour, roll out

• and cut out or cut into desired shapes.

• Bake the cookies in the preheated oven at 180°C for 10–15 minutes

Bone cookies

Cut out or cut bone shapes in various sizes, bake and optionally decorate with blood-red icing.

Skull cookies

Use a skull cookie cutter to cut shapes or cut out skulls. On the baked cookies paint eyes and mouth with food coloring or icing.

Ghost fingers

Cut the rolled-out dough into strips about finger-width and -length. Place a halved almond as a fingernail on the tip and score three fine lines as finger joints into the dough. Brush with egg yolk, bake and optionally decorate with red icing.

Creepily colorful drinks: recipe ideas for the Halloween party

For the children's Halloween party, the drinks may be screamingly colorful and a bit gross if desired. If you like, simply buy liquid food coloring and color water, apple juice or lemon soda. A bit more imaginative are mixed drinks with colored ice cubes. Unusual drinking vessels enhance the spooky effect: for example serve ice-cold cherry juice in tall test tubes or drawn up into large disposable syringes. We have more ideas for eerie Halloween drinks for you:

Monster drink

Have your child prepare ice cubes from cherry juice or elderberry juice. When the drink is to be served, fill the red ice cubes with poison-green woodruff soda into tall glasses.

Toad slime

Juice 3-4 kiwis with a citrus press and sweeten with maple syrup. Mix with buttermilk and optionally add a few drops of green food coloring to create 'streaks' in the drink.

Dragon blood

Sugar the frozen blueberries, purée finely, pour over with cold milk and serve in tall glasses.

Scare potion

Fill clear apple juice into an ice cube tray and place a plastic beetle or plastic spider into each compartment. Brew a mild herbal tea like mallow or peppermint, let cool and mix to taste with cherry juice or raspberry syrup and water. Put the ice cubes with plastic animals into glasses, fill with the potion and serve with straws.

Recipe: creepy punch with a frozen hand

You need:

• disposable glove

• water

• red fruit juices of your choice

• frozen berries 

How to: 

1. Fill the disposable glove with water, seal and place in the freezer. Let freeze overnight. 

2. Before the guests arrive, mix water with juices in a large container and add the frozen berries.  

3. Take the hand out of the freezer and run a little water over it. This causes the glove to come off the ice. Cut open the glove and carefully place the ice hand into the juice punch.  

4. The creepy punch is ready. 

Our tip:If desired, you can color the hand with food coloring.