Bewitching Bash

Sprinkle a bit of black magic over your table this Halloween.  The right over-the-top tricks and totally twisted (but yummy!) treats will have your guest screaming for more. Chopped Livers Scare your guests silly with the pretend “liver” chunks in this blackberry chutney that we call Chopped Liver Marmalade: Toss 1 diced Granny Smith apple in 3 tablespoons lemon juice. In a saucepan, boil 1⁄4 cup apple juice, 1⁄4 cup packed brown sugar, 1⁄2 cup diced red onion, 1 finely chopped garlic clove, and 1⁄4 cup red wine vinegar. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add apple mixture and simmer 10 more. Add 2 cups fresh blackberries, 1⁄2 teaspoon ginger, 2 teaspoons lemon zest, and 1⁄4 teaspoon salt, letting simmer for 10 more minutes. Gory Guts Want to creep out your company? Serve an eggplant dish disguised as what we like to call Raw Gut Chutney. In a skillet, cook 1 diced eggplant in olive oil until tender and browned. Transfer to bowl. Cook garlic, onion, and celery over medium heat, until onion is softened. Stir in 1 diced plum tomato; cook for 30 seconds. Pour tomato mixture into bowl with eggplant, then add 1⁄4 cup sliced olives, 2 tablespoons finely chopped basil, 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar, and 1⁄4 teaspoon fennel seeds. Stir gently to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Bashed Brains See if your friends can figure out what’s in the Chunked Brain Jam. To whip up this cream cheese cranberry spread with cracked pepper and bacon, combine an 18-ounce package softened Philadelphia cream cheese, 8 crumbled crisply cooked bacon slices, 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper, 1⁄4 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary. Stir. Add 1 can (14 ounces) whole-berry cranberry sauce. Gently stir together the cream cheese mixture and cranberry sauce, leaving chunks of cream cheese whole. Serve with water crackers. Fiendish Fondue Dare them to try this creamy fondue named after nasal nastiness. First rub the inside of a fondue pot or heavy-bottomed saucepan with garlic. Pour 2 cups dry white wine into pot and bring to boil. In a large bowl, toss 1 pound each of shredded Swiss cheese and shredded white Cheddar cheese, plus 4 tablespoons flour, and 2 teaspoons dry mustard. When wine boils, reduce heat to medium low. Gradually add cheese mixture in batches, stirring thoroughly; let each handful melt before adding the next. Season with salt, white pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Serve warm with cubes of pumpernickel. Devilish Details Craft a fiendish fantasy with elaborate black accents set off on stark white. Cloak your table with a double layer of white sheets (ironed, of course). Set up a black tree (find one at a party store) in an ornate black urn and cap it with a fancy, feathered costume hat. Adorn its branches with some ghastly ornaments, along with craft store butterflies (spray-painted black) and a cloud of bats made of glitter scrapbook paper. Creepy Cobwebs What better way to evoke a frightful holiday vibe than with yards of cob web? Spin yours out of fishnet stockings purchased at a party store. First, trim off the toes, waistbands, and seams, then cut into long flat surfaces of netting. Stretch each piece several times to relax the elastic. Attach one end behind the buffet with strong duct tape, then stretch netting up and over your table and tape the other end in place. Disguise spot where netting has been secured with a heavy object such as an urn or serving tray. Gloomy Blooms Ratchet up the horror by adding a splatter of blood red to the otherwise black-and-white spectacle. In this particular scene, the rose truly becomes the icing on the cake. Purchase twenty-four 1-inch red sugar roses and edible black disco dust. Using a paintbrush, wet the tips of rose petals with corn syrup; then sprinkle them the disco dust. Shake off the excess. Place one embellished rose on each black cupcake. Display each confection in a filigree cupcake wrapper. They will be awfully pretty. Click here for recipe. Bold Bottles Old wine bottles, rinsed thoroughly, can be repurposed as cocktail servers or decorative candleholders. To add height and drama to your table, convert seven bottles into creepy candleholders. Adorn three more with labels for your cocktails— Bloodclot-tini, Nightmare-rita, and Terrified Tears-tail—and use these decanters to pour the drinks. It’s easy to create labels on your computer, using a fancy script such as Edwardian. Add a border, cut out, and glue to black doilies. Or just handwrite ghoulish names on the doilies using a white marker. Frightful Favors Halloween wouldn’t be complete without a special sugary sendoff. Make a memorable goodie bag to give friends and family presided over by two ghouls: one black, the other white. We used ghost PEEPS®, turning some of the charming little guys black by using edible glitter (see below).  Put a ghoul of each color in a striped cupcake liner and place this all inside a cellophane bag. Add a handful of grape flavored candies (they look black) from the MIKE AND IKE® Halloween mixes. Tie each package with a 1⁄4-inch black picot-edged ribbon.

Edible Glitter Cast a glittery black hue onto a cute PEEPS® ghost to bring to life your black-and-white Halloween bash. Lightly coat a white ghost with cooking oil spray. Before it dries, sprinkle the figure with edible glitter. (You can adopt this technique with any color, of course.)

Demented Drinks Create a batch of wicked cocktails. Mix each brew in a pitcher with ice until chilled. Remove ice. With funnel, pour into each labeled bottle. For a Bloodclot-tini, mix 1 1⁄2 cup Ketel One Citroen® Flavored Vodka, 1⁄2 orange liqueur, 1 1⁄2 cups pomegranate juice, and 3 tablespoons lemon juice. For a Nightmare-rita, mix 1 1⁄2 cups Don Julio Blanco® Tequila, 1 1⁄2 cups blackberry juice, 1⁄2 cup lime juice, 1⁄2 cup orange liqueur and 2 drops black food coloring. For a Terrified Tears-tail, mix 3⁄4 cup Smirnoff® Vanilla Flavored Vodka,2 cups coconut cream,and 3⁄4 cups Captain Morgan® Parrot Bay® coconut rum. Each recipe serves 6.