Are you thinking of planning a Halloween party? Want to amuse and frighten your guests? Want your party snacks to send shivers up someone’s spine or even just make someone hesitate before munching on them? We’ve got some great ideas for horrifying and yummy snacks that require minimal prep work and yet will really delight your Halloween party guests. I’ll start with sinister savory snacks and move on to demented sweet delights. I promise they’ll be fun to make as well!

Mummy Pizzas and Hot Dogs

This first snack is a twofer: mummy pizzas and hot dogs. You can choose to make them both or just make one of them. They are both crowd pleasers and are most definitely kid pleasers. For the pizzas, simply use a cookie cutter to cut rounds out of a pre-made pizza crust, or English muffins or mini-bagels (depending on what you have in your bread box). I’m a firm believer in making things work with what I already have in my pantry, to limit my grocery bills. Then add tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese, leaving room for the eye slits. Use sliced pimento-stuffed green olives that you can get from most grocery stores for the eyes. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and you have mummy pizzas ready for a crowd of hungry beings! Mummy hot dogs are just as easy as the pizzas to make. All you need is mustard, hot dogs, sliced cheese and pre-made crescent roll dough. Cut the cheese slices into quarters and lay each hot dog onto one quarter cheese slice. Then, cut the dough into strips to use as bandages stretched around the hot dog, leaving room for the eyes, which you will dot on with mustard after the mummies are baked. Place the mummies cheese-side down on a baking sheet, then brush an egg wash over each mummy (tip: use cooking spray instead of the egg wash if you are concerned about guests with allergies). Then bake at 375 degrees for approximately 15 minutes.

Bat Wings

I think the idea of eating bat wings is both horrible and intriguing for a Halloween party. You’ll need to marinate these ahead of time, ideally the night before your party. All you need to do is to mix 1 cup of soy sauce with 1/3 cup oyster sauce, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup black bean sauce and last but not least, 1 teaspoon of black paste food coloring. Set about 1/3 cup of the mixture aside. Then, take about 20 whole chicken wings and marinate them overnight in the refridgerator in a resealable plastic bag with the black colored mixture you have made. Then extend the wings as much as possible and bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes, brushing the wings every 5 to 10 minutes with the 1/3 cup mixture you had set aside. And there you have it! Delicious and crispy bat wings!

Stuffed Cockroaches

Moving on to slightly sweeter but just as horrifying snacks, I propose that cockroaches make an appearance at your Halloween get-together. Mix 1/3 cup cream cheese with 1/4 cup of roughly chopped walnuts. Then stuff about 20 to 30 Medjool dates with the mixture. You can add antena by sticking slivers of green onion or chives to the head of each cockroach. Your platter of cockroaches will be certain to give your guests the heebie jeebies if you simply add a bunch of rubber cockroaches to the selection of edible ones.

Carrot Fingers

I love this carrot snack because it is so easy to make and so easy to get creeped out by. To start out, all you need to do is to fill a bowl with your favorite dip. Mine is spinach dip, but most crowds will be delighted with a simple ranch dip. Then peel and cut regular carrots into the sizes of actual fingers, with varying lengths. Dab a bit of cream cheese (as a glue) onto slivered almonds and add one almond piece to the top of each carrot. Then stick each carrot into the bowl of dip, as seen in the image above, and you have a hand reaching out at you. Finally, place the bowl of fingers on a larger platter, upon which you can place baby fingers (baby carrots with the almond nail treatment) all around for dipping purposes.

Chocolate Frogs

If your guests shy away from your textured cockroaches, then maybe they’ll be into some horrifyingly sweet chocolate frogs! Just buy a package of gummy frogs and brush them with a mixture of melted chocolate chips and butter (the approximate ratio being 1/2 cup chocolate chips to 2 teaspoons of butter). Let the frogs set on some wax or parchment paper for a while, and when they are dry they are ready to serve! Easy peasy and bite-sized creepy!

Preserved Gummy Body Parts

Okay, so what you want to do here is to make it look like you have preserved mini body parts for your guests to feast upon. Purchase some gummy body parts (brains, eyes, ears, noses, fingers, etc), like the candy in the picture above. Then, if you have young kids, then you probably have either a regular ice cube tray or a tray with bigger compartments that you used to use for freezing baby portions of food. Use either one of these for this recipe. Empty 2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin into 1 cup of cold lemonade (or limeade). After one minute, then add 2 cups of boiling lemonade and stir until the gelatin has completely dissolved. Pour the liquid into ice cube trays and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Then press a gummy body part into each cube and then refrigerate for a few hours. Then serve the body parts on toothpicks at your party! Horrifying, no?

Spider Cupcakes

Out of the many spider creations I contemplated whipping up for my Halloween party, these particular spider cupcakes are the easiest to make and most evil-looking, so I’m definitely counting on these to horrify and delight my guests! In terms of equipment, it would be ideal to get mini muffin tins with paper liners, or a mini muffin silicone baking tray. Otherwise, if you just have regular size tins, you’ll be serving enormous radioactive-looking spiders, which would be horrifying, but not easy for a guest to finish eating, after all of your other gruesome snacks. So, first, prepare either chocolate or vanilla mini-cupcakes. Once cooled, the cupcakes will be ready for some icing. Vanilla buttercream is always nice. Then cover the icing completely with black sanding sugar to top off the spider’s body. Then use black licorice vines as legs (don’t forget! spiders have eight legs each!), cinnamon candy for evil eyes, and finally, cut up marshmallow fangs to inspire fear! Mmmm!

Donut Eyeballs

In the world of Halloween party recipes, eyeballs can be either sweet or savory. I think that no Halloween party would be complete without an overdose of sweet, so here is the snack I will be making for my Halloween party: donut eyeballs. Start by picking up a few dozen plain donut holes from your local bakery. Then, make sure you have 1 bag of white chocolate chips and 1 bag of  semi-sweet chocolate chips. Melt the white chocolate chips over a double boiler or in the microwave. Using some sort of skewer, dip each donut hole into the chocolate and set down on wax or parchment paper to dry. Then divide the remaining white chocolate into two batches. Add blue food coloring to one and green food coloring to the other. Make a round iris for each donut hole and immediately push a semi-sweet chocolate chip into the center. Then, use red decorating gel to draw veins, making the eyes look red and irritated, as in the picture above. Serve the eyeballs on a platter as is, or serve them on small forks for added flair. Your guests will go home satisfied, suitably horrified and with a probable belly ache after eating these tasty treats! I hope you’ve found inspiration in these eight classically ghoulish and delicious finger foods for your upcoming Halloween party!