Photography © Kevin Kennefick

Turkeys
Excerpted from Candy Construction by Sharon Bowers
Copyright © 2010 by Sharon Parrish Bowers
Used with permission from Storey Publishing
What You’ll Need:
Nutter Butter cookies
Chocolate Mortar or 1 can store-bought chocolate frosting
Mini marshmallows
Mini chocolate chips
Candy corn
Red fruit leather or red decorating gel
Fudge-striped shortbread cookies (two for each turkey)

What to Do
1. For each turkey, lay a Nutter Butter flat on your work surface. For the eyes, put two dabs of mortar on one end of the cookie and press two mini chocolate chips into the wet frosting. For the beak, trim off the tip of a candy corn and mortar it in place. Cut a little strip of red fruit leather and glue it alongside the beak, letting it dangle down beneath to serve as the wattle. If you don’t have fruit leather, you can use a squeeze of red decorating gel.

2. With mortar, glue the back of the Nutter Butter to the front of a fudge-striped shortbread cookie. Use more mortar to glue candy corn to the back of the striped cookie. Place the candy corn so that the fat ends radiate outward.

3. With a thick dollop of frosting, glue the Nutter Butter and fudge-striped cookie in a standing position on a second fudge striped cookie that is lying flat. It helps to sort of nestle the rounded base of the Nutter Butter into the hole in the middle of the shortbread cookie.

Fun Variation: These goofy turkeys are even cuter if you have the brown “Indian corn” candy corn (with brown ends instead of yellow), which is sometimes available in late fall. (If you see it, stock up!) Or be sure to save some regular candy corn from Halloween, because Thanksgiving will be here before you know it.

This is one project where using a few dabs of peanut butter in place of frosting is fast, easy, entirely appropriate, and even totally tasty. Be sure to use creamy peanut butter, not crunchy. Also, do not use the natural kind, which is less sticky because it’s grainier and oilier, lacking the sugar and emulsifiers that smooth out other types of peanut butter.

Pilgrim Hats
From Candy Construction by Sharon Bowers
Storey Publishing, 2010

Photo by Kevin Kennfick

12 fudge-striped shortbread cookies
12 mini peanut butter or caramel cups
Chocolate Mortar or 1 can store-bought chocolate frosting
Strawberry fruit leather

What to Do:
1) To construct the hats, turn the cookies over so the solid chocolate side is on top. Unwrap the miniature cups and use a dab of mortar to glue them, top side down, to the center of the cookie.

2) To make the hatbands, use scissors or a sharp paring knife to cut a strip of the fruit leather about 1/8-in. wide. Wrap it snugly around the fluted base of the cup, pressing it right up against the cookie. Press the ends together and trim off the excess. The fruit leather is sticky enough that you probably won’t need icing to hold the ends together.

3) Cut a square buckle from another piece of fruit leather and press the buckle over the seam in the hatband.

Chocolate Mortar: (makes 3 cups)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
4 cups confectioners’ sugar (a 1-pound box)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2-3 tablespoons whole milk or cream

1) Beat the butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and cocoa powder, beating until absorbed. If the frosting is too thick, add the milk or cream, a few teaspoons at a time, until it reaches the consistency you prefer.

A frozen hand in punch is a Halloween standard because it always looks terrific, even if you have already seen it dozens of times as a child. Use a surgical or thin, disposable latex glove (you can buy them in the housewares department of any big-box store) or even a rubber housework glove. To transfer your frozen hand out of the glove and into the punch bowl intact, you must cut the glove off the palm and each finger with sharp scissors — it will not roll off in one piece.

Screaming Red Punch with a Hand
From Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers
Storey Publishing, 2009

Makes 1½ gallons, about 24 servings

1 new rubber surgical glove
2 quarts apple juice
2 quarts cranberry juice (cranberry-pomegranate is nice too)
2 liters ginger ale

1. Rinse the glove inside and out several times with cold water to make sure it doesn’t have any powder coating. Fill with water and tie the wrist tightly closed with a twist tie. Freeze solid.

2. Mix the juices and ginger ale in a large punch bowl. Cut the glove carefully off the hand and fingers with a sharp scissors and float the molded hand in the punch.

Excerpted from Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers © 2009
Photographs © Kevin Kennefick, Illustrations © Michael Slack, Food Styling by Norma Miller.
Used with permission from Storey Publishing

Use miniature M&Ms (green are fun) to make the irises in these monster eyes and begin with very soft butter, or the ingredients will be difficult to blend. Mound the eyeballs into a bowl for serving, or lay them out on a tray in row after unblinking row.

Monster Eyeballs
From Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers
Storey Publishing, 2009

Makes about 48 eyeballs

1½ cups creamy peanut butter
½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1 (1-pound) package confectioners’ sugar (about 4 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
1 (3-ounce) package miniature M&Ms

1. Blend the peanut butter with the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. It may be easiest to use your hands (kids love doing this).

2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with wax paper. Roll the peanut butter mixture by teaspoons into small balls and place on the baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to firm up the eyeballs.

3. Put the chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave-safe bowl and melt the chocolate in the microwave: Heat on high for 60 seconds, and then stir well. If it’s not quite smooth, heat in two or three 10-second bursts, stirring well after each burst. (Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate, stirring frequently, in a double boiler, over just-simmering water.
Avoid overheating, which can cause chocolate to seize up into a stiff mass.)

4. Take the sheet of balls from the refrigerator; use a fork or a toothpick to dip each one most of the way into the chocolate, leaving a round or oval opening of undipped peanut butter on top. (This opening in the chocolate will be the cornea.) Hold each ball over the chocolate to catch the drips, and then return to the wax paper, cornea side up.

5. Place an M&M in the center of the peanut butter cornea to make an iris. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. Store the eyeballs in the refrigerator or freezer and serve chilled.

Excerpted from Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers © 2009
Photographs © Kevin Kennefick, Illustrations © Michael Slack, Food Styling by Norma Miller.
Used with permission from Storey Publishing

Swamp Creature Toes: (Makes about 36 toes!)

Salty, sweet, and nutty, these funny big-toe-like snacks are made extra ghoulish by tossing the almonds with green food coloring to give the end result an eerie glow.

Even if you skip the green color, you’ll still have funky toes.

1/2 cup whole skinless salted almonds
green liquid coloring
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
1 (6-ounce) bag 8-inch pretzel rods (about 12)

1. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or wax paper. Blend the almonds with about 10 drops of coloring in a small stainless steel, ceramic, or glass bowl (plastic might stain). Stir well until all the nuts are coated. Spread the green almonds on a plate to dry.

2. Put the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and melt the chocolate in the microwave: Heat on high for 60 seconds, and then stir well. If it’s not quite smooth, heat in two or three 10-second bursts, stirring well after each burst.  (Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate, stirring frequently, in a double boiler, over just-simmering water. Avoid overheating, which can cause chocolate to seize up into a stiff mass.)

3. Break each pretzel rod into 3 pieces. Dip a broken piece about three-quarters of the way into the melted chocolate, leaving a broken end visible. (If it’s an end piece of the pretzel, dip the finished end, leaving the broken end showing.)

4. Lay the dipped pretzel on a prepared baking sheet and lay a green almond on the top of the dipped end. If the almond won’t stick, dip the underside in a bit more chocolate. When all the toes are decorated, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator or freezer to firm the chocolate. Serve cool.