H is for Halloween

I'm having a party!  It's a bit of a big birthday this year and rather than hide away, I've decided to throw a party and make sure everyone knows I'm 30...ish...well...maybe 30 + 10!

And with 26 guests saying they'll be on they way for 26 October, I've got to decorate my rooms and cook up a feast.

And given I want to be able to spend time with my guests, we're having curries.  I can cook them all a couple of days in advance, keep them in the fridge, put them in the oven with the timer set to turn on as guests arrive to warm them back up. The rice is cooked in the rice cooker.

However they need to be themed up a bit, so I'm giving them new names.  My menu therefore reads as:

• Swamp Dip & Crisped Dragon Skin (Raiti & mini poppadums)

• Curried Manticore (Lamb curry)
• Pumpkin Brain (Cauli & squash curry)
• Batwing Slime (Thai chicken)

• Lice with Dead Flies (Saffron rice with sultanas)

And for pudding:

• Mini mummies (lemon drizzle cupcakes)
• Worms in slime (jellies with fruit snake-shaped sweets)
• Cobweb cake (chocolate cake)

When serving the curries, adding food tags to sit next to the dishes will be enough.

But for the puddings, I needed to decorate the cakes, buns and ensure that the fruits sweets really snaked their way out of the jellies as they set and ensure they were suitably spooky.

The lemon cupcakes therefore had strips of ready-rolled icing cut to size to cover the top with a couple of sugar eyes set on each bun.  Meanwhile the chocolate cake was covered in dark chocolate and a web piped in white chocolate over the top.

And I had a lot of fun raiding eBay for suitable decorations.

For extra support and/or if my ideas for recipes don't appeal, check out Martha Stewart's Halloween party planner.