Time is so against me today and I already know that this blog post isn't going to be going up until very late night tonight. I've to leave in like 20 mins to go to play DD. It's the first game of the new season tonight -how very fitting!- and I as I don't know how long the new style of play and the new rules are going to take I don't know when I'll be home. But we'll see!
Above is my pumpkin for this year! He's an awesome fire dragon. And yeah some inspiration did come from DD! but I like my pumpkins to be different. He took awhile to make, I started at 7pm and finished about 11.15pm. The design was pretty easy, though the tips of the flames were a bit tricky. I also accident put a hole in the pumpkin when scooping it out. Luckily, it was in an area I needed to cut out, but once I started that I found that the hole had created a crack right across the pumpkin! That was really upsetting and give me some difficulties in carving out the wings. But he does look pretty cool.
Back from a very good DD night. And there's been no tricker or treaters so all the chocolate and left over biscuits for me! Though I've got blueberry muffins for tomorrow as well. I saw a few people dressed up and having nights out. Manchester was it's normal busy self and the weather is so awful all rainny, windy and cold. It feel like winter already!
Back to Halloween anyways. I still think that it's not as big in Europe as it is in the States. In Britian we do have all the shops selling tons of Halloween releated stuff a month in advance, a few people throw parties, schools and clubs get creative. But when you go out on Halloween nights, the streets that should be full of tricker or treaters and the houses that should have pumpkins and garden displays,just are not. There'll only be a handful of kids for every few streets and even less houses displaying pumpkins. I'm still not sure why this is so, maybe the stigma of Halloween is still clinging? Maybe unlike Christmas this is holiday that people just can't get into? For whatever the reason, I still think it's a shame.
My Favourite Halloween recipes
Pumpkin Pie
I follow a traditional family recipe for this and it's not a normal 'pie' it's more like a cheese cake. But it's still amazing!
500gm Pumpkin - cooked (Steam it for about 30-40 mins)
2 packets of ginger snaps
100gms melted butter
1 digestives
Tablespoon of Mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
3 eggs
200gm caster sugar
100gm brown sugar
500ml double cream
Break up biscuits with rolling pin and then spreed into glass baking dish and mix with the butter. Set to cool.
Then mix all the other ingredients together beside from the cream. Add in cool pumpkin, mix and then add cream. Mix some more and pour over biscuit base. Then in preheated oven at 180 degrees, put it in for 15-20 mins and then turn down oven to 160 degrees and cook for 40 mins. Set aside for an hour or so. Then serve warm or cold with cream.
So awesome.
Basic gingerbread men mixture, but add in mixed spice, Cinnamon and nutmeg. Then use Halloween shape cookie cutters and a range of icing pens to decorate. I got sprinkles and ghost/bat sugar shapes.
Crumble gravestone cookies
So simple to make just basic butter cookies and then cut into 'headstone' like shapes. Using icing pens to decorate. I love making mine all individual and write fake epitaphs on them.
There's tons of other Halloween recipes out there like the chocolate moose graveyard and the chocolate fudge spider cake I made last year. I think that's why I really like this time of year, because there's so much good cooking to be done!
Also the traddtional scary movie night. I'm having mine with my boyfriend tomorrow, as I've been playing DD tonight and baking for all the afternoon. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic must watch! I've also got Interview With a Vampire and Queen of the Damned. Should be fun.
As for me, I wish you all a Happy Halloween!
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