8 Halloween recipes to help you scare up a ghoulish party

By Kari Sonde

Halloween is not generally a food holiday, but if you’ve got a creative streak and a Halloween party to conjure up food for, you can make some ghoulishly fun tricks and treats. There’s 2019′s social media sensation, “Feetloaf,” though this, while frightful, will not necessarily be eaten by your guests. Below, I pulled some decidedly more delicious spooky treats — including cocktails for all the adults (me) who love this holiday. There’s even recipes for any leftover candies you’ll have for the weeks following Halloween. And if you think your kids will enjoy making treats with you, check out Ann Maloney’s article last year on Halloween-themed cookies for tips on how to get them involved in the process. If you want to go all out and have a spooky dinner party, check out this roundup last year of foods to be fashioned into a frightful spread.

Do you know what's for dinner? Get our Eat Voraciously newsletter, and let us help. Cranberry Cat Kisses, pictured above. These cookies are a great way to get creative. We turned the original recipe into black cats by spreading the chocolate all over the cookies, using licorice for whiskers and certain types of sprinkles for the face. You could also make frogs, by using white chocolate tinted with green gel food coloring (and perhaps a drop of mint extract, if you think your guests will enjoy it).

(Laura Chase de Formigny for The Washington Post/food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post)

Finnish Chestnut Fingers. Take this recipe and add a sliced almond to the end of each cookie to make a witch’s finger. If you’re feeling extra-spooky: Embed the sliced almond into the end of each cookie, then bake, and dip the opposite end in white chocolate tinted with red and black to look like blood.

(Laura Chase de Formigny for The Washington Post/food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post) Cornmeal and Cherry Thumbprint Cookies. Red jam is your ticket to tasty fake blood. Make these cookies and use red gel icing to make veins, and voilà! Bloody eyeballs. You can also make Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Jam Blondies and say that Dracula dropped off some blood to make them.

(Toni Sandys)

Frankenmuffins. These banana muffins are tinted green with spinach, but kids don’t have to know — tell them they’re ghostly muffins or that witches turned them green. If you feel like it, make black or purple frosting to complete the experience. 10 spooky snacks for your Halloween party

(Laura Chase de Formigny for The Washington Post/food styling by Marie Ostrosky for The Washington Post) The Black Lagoon. This inky drink is for all those pirates out there. Add a creepy garnish if you like, or a bitter chocolate one, suggests Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan. How to concoct frighteningly good Halloween cocktails

(M. Carrie Allan) Bloody Good Halloween Punch. It’s easy to make a blood-red punch, but this punch recipe also tastes good. Dry ice is optional — if you decide to use it, exercise extreme caution and do not consume it

(Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post/food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post) M&M Bars. If you find yourself flush with M&Ms after Halloween, make these tasty M&M bars to use them up. Seven recipes to use up all that leftover Halloween candy

(Jennifer Chase for the Washington Post)

White Chocolate Unicorn Bark. If you have lots of disparate candies, this colorful white chocolate bark is a pretty way to give that candy new life.

(Source: The Washington Post)