Halloweencostume.co.uk! Halloween Fun, Facts and Activities. Party Games and Recipes!

Party Games and Recipes!

These games are intended for children, but let's face it once you've clambered into a bizarre outfit, made your face up and had one too many glasses of lemonade the child in everyone comes out! Just don't get over excited!

Games.

• Apple Bobbing.
• Apple on a String.
• Captain Dead Eye.
• Pass the Balloon.
• Pin the Tail on the Devil.
• Flapping Coffins.
• Jack-O-Lantern Contest.

Recipes.

• Toffee Apples.
• Pumpkin Pie.
• Roasted Pumpkin Soup.
• Worm Jelly.
• Pernicious Punch
• Frozen 'Bloody Hand'.

Apple Bobbing.

Like the best of party games this is very simple. You could get wet, you could make a mess and you probably will look stupid - but you will have fun.

• We always used to use a baby bath when I was a kid, but any very large receptacle will do, it will need to be wide enough to get 4 or more heads over the water at the same time.
• Put the container on the floor - it will be very heavy when it is full, so either do this outside or have some method of emptying it. If you are doing this inside take care to cover the whole area with plastic otherwise the floor will get very wet.
• Float the apples in the water, pulling all the stalks off the apples makes the game harder. The size of the apples is important, if grown ups are playing then you will need big apples, small ones fit into their mouth too easily.
• The contestants have to kneel beside the tub and grab the apples with their teeth. The water must be deep enough or some people will cheat by pushing the apple against the base of the tub.
• It's simple! The first person to get an apple out - WITHOUT USING THEIR HANDS - is the winner.
• Put the prize for the winner in a bucket of confetti, they need to pick the prize up with their teeth - whilst their face is still wet! Boy they will look stupid; hey, no one likes a smart-ass!

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Apple on a String.

This is so simple but is hilarious! You will need apples and string. Tie the string to the stalk of the apple. Tie the other end of the apple to something high; you could hang these from the banisters of your stairs (only above a flat surface, it's not safe to play games on stairs), or pin the strings to beams. On the word "GO" the winner is the first person to take a big bite out of their apple without using their hands.

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Captain Dead Eye - this one's just plain nasty!

A great game for Ghostly Pirate themed parties. One volunteer is sent out of the room. Whilst they are out of the room you explain to the other guests that you are playing a trick on your volunteer! When you are ready you bring in your blindfolded victim, they are introduced to Captain Dead Eye (volunteer two). Using one of the victim's fingers you say "this is Captain Dead Eye's mouth", then you trace the outline of volunteer 2's mouth. "This is Captain Dead Eye's nose;" (you get the idea) and go through various parts of the face. Then you ask if they know why Captain Dead Eye has such a funny name...
Take their finger and stick it in half a grapefruit!

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Pass the Balloon.

Using orange and black balloons gives this old party game a Halloween twist. Put your guests into pairs, starting with the balloon resting on the foreheads of the 2 guests one guest has to roll the balloon down the other's body, back up the other side and the winner is the first couple to end up in the starting position.

A nasty twist is to fill the balloons with shaving foam as you blow them up, anyone that uses their hands gets their balloon popped by the judges and has to start with another balloon! Sounds too easy? Why not try this game wearing your Halloween masks, as demonstrated by our models! Great fun guaranteed!

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Pin the Tail on the Devil.

Again this is a Halloween version of the classic game. Make up a poster picture of the devil and pin in position. Each contestant is blindfolded and the other guests shout "hot" or"cold" instructions. The person that pins the tail on nearest to where it should be is the winner!

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Jack-O-Lantern Contest.

Get all of your guests to make a jack-o-lantern (carved pumpkin) to bring to your party. Then you give each one a number (that way no one will know who made it). Next ask your guests to vote for their favorite jack-o-lantern and whoever wins gets a great prize. Spooky masks make great prizes; our friends at fancydress.com have a huge selection of horror masks

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Why not make some spare costumes, and maybe some money for your favourite charity?

Collect inexpensive fancy dress items together, masks, silly hats or even wigs. Then if anyone attends your fancy dress party and is rude enough to turn up without making an effort you make them wear one of your items for a rental fee! One of the girls in the office did this and raised £65 for Marie Curie!

Toffee Apples.

Everyone likes toffee apples, I was always told to eat more fruit and less sweets so this recipe helps!

Warning:- cooking with sugar is risky, do take care, the toffee looks so delicious but boiling sugar sticks to the skin and burns, so take care, do not leave sugar on the cooker unattended and supervise children at all times. A sugar thermometer is a useful piece of equipment (but not essential).

This is what you need:

• 6 nice ripe eating apples (don't use cooking apples - ugh)
• 6 Lolly Sticks (thoroughly washed - sorry you will have to eat the lolly first)
• 225g Demerara sugar
• 110ml tap water
• Half a teaspoon of vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 25g unsalted butter

This is what you do:

Put the sugar and the water into a heavy pan, put it onto a moderate heat to dissolve the sugar and then add the vinegar, golden syrup and butter.
When this comes to a boil cook until it reaches the hard-crack stage (this is marked on sugar thermometers). The hard crack stage can be found by dropping a small amount into a pan of cold water, it should harden quickly in the cold water, normally this will take about 10 minutes.

Push the apples onto the sticks and dip them into the hot toffee (remember to take care) Turn the apples around so that they get a good coating and then stand them on a lightly buttered baking tray to cool totally. Do not use a wire rack to cool the apples; we did when we were testing the recipe and what a mess!

You can make these earlier in the day or if you want to make them a day earlier wrap them in double layers of baking parchment and cellophane, keep them somewhere cool and dark but not in the fridge.

Extra ideas

Whilst the toffee is still warm roll the apples in chopped nuts (may contain nuts - you have to say that!), 100's and 1,000's or crushed flake or for an extra special effect try some space dust! If you want to try a more adult toffee apple you could use dark muscavado sugar and treacle.

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Pumpkin Pie.

A delicious pumpkin pie, spiced with ginger and cinnamon.

This is what you need:

• 175g granulated sugar
• Half tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• Quarter tsp ground ginger
• Quarter tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 300g pumpkin purée (tinned will save ages of preparation). See the recipe for Pumpkin Soup below for fresh pumpkin preparation guidelines.
• 350g evaporated milk
• 1 unbaked 23cm/9in deep-dish pastry case (or line a deep 23cm/9in tart tin with shortcrust pastry, if you are making your own pastry use some dried ginger with the flour)

This is how you do it:

1. Preheat oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7.
2. Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl.
3. Beat the eggs lightly in large bowl.
4. Stir the pumpkin purée and sugar-spice mixture into eggs.
5. Gradually stir in the evaporated milk.
6. Pour into the pastry case.
7. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
8. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.
9. Serve immediately or chill.

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Roasted Pumpkin Soup.

When your Trick-or-Treaters get back to your party they could be very cold, so this will warm them up.

• 500g pumpkin flesh - if you have more pumpkin use it and add more stock.
• A medium onion
• 2 fat cloves of garlic
• Chicken (or Vegetable) stock
• Salt and Pepper
• Nutmeg to taste
• Olive oil

Extras
Very crispy bacon
Or
crème fraîche

This recipe works best with smaller "pie pumpkins" as they are less fibrous than the big ones used for carving out Jack-O-Lanterns.

Cut your pumpkin(s) into 8 wedges. Take the pieces and put them, skin side down, on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Sprinkle a very small amount of oil over them and roast in a medium oven until the edges of the pieces are nice and toasted. Usually about 40 mins.

In the meantime chop the onion finely and fry it gently in a tablespoon of olive oil; once the onion becomes transparent add the chopped garlic cloves. Fry these gently but watch out that the garlic does not burn.

Take the cooked pumpkin and remove the skin, which should come away easily. Cut the pumpkin flesh into chunks of about the same size. Add the pumpkin pieces to the oil and onion mix and stir gently.

Add your stock and a little salt and pepper. Simmer this for 10 minutes and set aside until this is cool, this will help the flavors develop and will also make the liquidizing safer.

When cool, either blitz the soup with a hand-held mixer or decant into a liquidizer. You can blend it smooth or keep a few chunks in there, whichever you prefer. The soup will then need to be gently warmed on the stove (don't boil it!) before serving. As you warm up the soup add some freshly grated nutmeg. I like about half a nutmeg, but add small amounts and keep tasting.

Finally add a swirl of crème fraîche or some very crispy bacon crumbled over the soup (hell - it's Halloween have both)!

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Worm Jelly.

• Jelly Worms in red and green
• Strawberry or Raspberry Jelly
• Shot glasses
• Cocktail sticks

First you need to get yourself off to the local pick-n-mix sweet shop. They may think you are mad but what you need to do is pick out the red and the green jelly worms, pay for them and run home (without eating the jelly worms).

Make up a batch of strawberry jelly and one pack of lime jelly.

Now prepare the worms. Firstly, gently push a cocktail stick through each worm's 'neck'. Please be careful when you do this as cocktail sticks are sharp and pointy! Mind your fingers! This will allow the worm to be suspended in the center of the glass as in the diagram on the left. When you are happy that the worm is in the right place, take it out and place it to one side.

Next pour the jelly into the glasses (some with red jelly and some with green) and let it go completely cold, so that when you add the worms, they keep their shape. JUST BEFORE the jelly sets, pop the worm into the jelly. Use green worms for the red jelly and red worms for the green. Leave the glasses aside until the jelly is completely set.

Make sure that you carefully remove the cocktail sticks and dispose of them safely before you eat the jellies!

Finally... enjoy!

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Pernicious Punch

This is simple to make and you can scale it up if you want masses. Naturally we have designed a non-alcoholic version but if you want to give it a bit of a grown-up kick then it works well with a dash of Gin or Vodka!

• 1 x 2L bottle of Orange Fizzy Drink - we like Tango but you could keep your eye open for that bright orange stuff!
• 1 carton pineapple juice
• A dash of lemon juice.

Make sure that all 3 items are nice and cold and just before the party mix them together. If you use enough lemon juice to make it sour you can serve a glass full and drizzle some sugary red cordial into it (we used Grenadine as it's very red and does not mix in too quickly). To start with it looks like a dribble of blood, but it eventually mixes in and makes the whole thing a gentle pink colour.

A nasty little addition is a lychee in the bottom of the glass as you serve the punch. They have a horrific resemblance to an eyeball! Ughhh!

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Frozen 'Bloody Hand'.

If you are planning a big bowl of punch you'll need to keep it cold so...

Take cartons of red juice (I like cranberry, but the choice is yours), you will also need disposable plastic gloves from the supermarket (make sure that they are 'powder-free' ones). Fill them with the red juice, tie off the end and carefully put them in the freezer. Just before your guests arrive cut the end of the glove off and drop the now frozen bloody hand into the punch bowl and wait for your guests to scream! Make sure you make enough to keep adding them throughout the evening.

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Thanks to our friends at Angels Fancy Dress for all the hints and tips featured on this site.
    Angels Fancy Dress have been around for nearly 170 years. They started supplying costumes in 1840!

Pumpkin photograph by Crystal Leigh Shearin

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