Drinks, Drinks, DRINKS!

A lot of online Halloween themed drink recipes call for really expensive ingredients. Well, I'm not exactly loaded so I made up some of my own, cheap and simple but tasty recipes. I also found ways to make them more.. festive. First, lets start with the cups...

I do this the night before the party. First, set out a ton of plastic cups. Orange and black are the usual colors I use. Leave some set aside for people who don't want sugar on theirs -boring! Take a plate and mix sugar crystal sprinkles of Halloween colors together. My favorite mix is black, orange, green and purple. Then, take another plate and pour a bit of Caro syrup (any type of corn syrup works), on the plate, just enough to cover it really. Next, dip the rims -ONLY- of the cups into the syrup.  Gently shake off any excess syrup. then touch the syrup to the sprinkles on the other plate. Make sure the rim is coated with sugar and let dry. If the sugar gets too clumpy with syrup, wash off the plate and make a new one. If your cups drip, use less syrup.

Now for the drinks. Obviously, its always good to have lots of soda and beer (for the adult parties), but its fun to have other stuff too. The key to making boring things look more spooky is labels! Labels turn "Koolaid and Vodka" into "Bog Water" or "The Black Plague." Plus, its best to have clearly labeled drinks so people who can't have alcohol (drivers, pregnant women, etc), can still join in on the fun.

For my black drinks, I mix Orange and grape Koolaid together. Then I add rainbow sherbert. The real trick? Beforehand, I take the rainbow sherbert and let it melt a little on the counter. Then I stir in some black food coloring and mix it into a nasty looking blackish brown mess. Throwing lumps of the icky looking but tasty sherbert adds some texture and bubbles. For the alcoholic one, I just add a bunch of vodka, until it has a nice kick.

For the "Swamp Water," I use lemon-lime Koolaid, Sprite and some stirred rainbow sherbet. I don't dye the sherbert for this, just stir until its a disgusting looking brown. Then I add gummy eyeballs from Walmart. They INSIST on floating upside down and the start to disintegrate after a bit, making the gross lumpy stuff that floats on top. Of course, it <i>tastes</i> wonderful, but it looks nasty.

Spooky Bundt Cake

Spooky Bundt Cake

-Note! I originally got the original recipe online somewhere but I changed it a bit so here is my version. I also did a Thanksgiving cake that I will post below.


You will need:
1 box of MOIST white cake mix and the items needed for that box
1 box of MOIST chocolate cake mix and the items needed for that box
Black, orange and purple food coloring
1 tub of CREAMY white frosting
A Bundt Cake pan
Sprinkles (Optional)

-Preheat Oven to 375°F
This is easier than it looks but takes a while so I gave it a harder difficulty. First you make your cake mixes.  Take about 2/3 of the chocolate cake mix and put it in a new container. (I made cup cakes with the left overs). Split the white cake mix into two other containers, equally. Add black food coloring to the chocolate mix. Add orange to one bowl and purple to the other for the white cake mix. Stir thoroughly! You can see this in the first picture.

Grease the daylights out of your Bundt Cake pan. Don't forget around the middle. Now for the swirly design... Take your chocolate mix and pour about 1/4 into the pan. Then pour 1/4 of the orange over it. Do the same with the purple. Now for whatever is left, just kind of drizzle it, one color at a time, until its all used. (See the second and third photo). Bake according to directions on the box but make sure that when a toothpick is inserted, it comes out clean. It may take a few extra minutes.

Let it cool for about 10 minutes then put a plate or something large enough to cover the top. Cover the pan and flip it over so the cake comes out. (Fourth Photo). Take your frosting and divide it into 3 separate containers. Dye one bowl of frosting black, then another orange and the last purple. It is best to pop them in the microwave for about 30 seconds so they can be drizzled easier. Take 3 spoons, one for each color, and begin to decorate. Drizzle a little bit of one color all the way around, then another, then the third and repeat until the frosting is gone and the cake is covered (you may have to re-heat the frosting if it hardens).   (Optional: Top with sprinkles).

What I ended up doing, since I made a TON of food for the party, was two days before the party, I made the cake. Then the night before, I frosted. This year, it was the first thing to go. I should have made more than one! It was a hit.

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Since everyone loved the cake on Halloween, I did one for thanksgiving. I used red, orange and yellow food coloring for the white mix. The chocolate was already brown but I bought brown icing coloring for the frosting. I used sprinkles too. I couldn't find any with just red, orange and yellow so I sat and picked all the green sprinkles out of what I could find. THAT was tedious. Here is how that one turned out...

People started eating it before I could get a nice picture of the inside lol. Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to show me pictures of your cakes too!
-Tracey