Black Sesame Cupcakes
There's nothing artificial about these dramatically hued treats. Supermoist (and whole-grain) chocolate cupcakes get their blackout color from black sesame seeds and antioxidant-rich dark cocoa powder. These desserts are delicious and better for you, with every bit of fun, festive flair you crave.
Halloween Spider Cookies
Landing somewhere between adorable and slightly spooky, these Halloween spider cookies are sure to fulfill all your creepy-crawly sweet needs for your upcoming Halloween festivities. Using a classic cut-out butter cookie dough keeps the edges of your spider cookies shape neat and clean—no worries about the cookies expanding when they bake. Decorate these Halloween cut-out cookies with black gel icing, royal icing, candy eyes, orangle and black sprinkles, or whatever fun decorations you have on hand. These cookies make for a playful, spooky food craft that grown-ups and kids alike can enjoy.
Deserted Graveyard Cake
Prepare this decadent, chocolate-frosted cake for a festive Halloween dessert.
Spooky Candy-Coated Apples
Dipping apples in white candy melts gives them a ghostly apperance perfect for your Halloween party.
Mummified Candy-Corn Cake
This festive candy corn-colored cake is sure to impress your Halloween guests.
White Chocolate 'Butterfinger' Bars
Jessica Segarra, 25, Tampa, Fla., thenovicechefblog.com
Trick or Treat Cupcakes
This cupcake is the showcase for our Halloween thrills. For the parade of goblins, ghosts, and monsters looking for something sweet, we top it with anything we can find on the candy aisle. There's no trick to this treat—it's scrumptious any time of year.
Chocolate Spider Cupcakes
These spooky spiderweb cupcakes for Halloween are easier to decorate than you think. Simply frost in white icing, then pipe black icing in concentric circles and drag a toothpick through them to create the webbed effect. For kid-friendly cupcakes, use water instead of bourbon in the frosting.
Scary Spiders
Transform packaged snack cakes into creepy crawlers. These treats take minutes and are a perfect Halloween-themed activity for cookie-loving kiddos.
Ghost Cookies
Prepare for a sweet scare when these adorable Halloween ghost cookies are all iced, decorated, and ready to party. Super easy and kid-friendly to make, these butter cut-out cookies coated with royal icing are the perfect dessert for your Halloween spread. Candy eyeballs add a playful, whimsical touch to these spooky treats, but you could also use black icing to draw eyes on your ghost cookies. Using a classic cut-out butter cookie dough keeps the edges of your ghost cookies shape neat and clean—no worries about the cookies expanding when they bake. Whip up a batch with the kids and let them go to town with the decorating for a fun Halloween kitchen activity.
Frankenstein Cookies
Starting with refrigerated, store-bought cookie dough, these cooky Frankenstein cookies are an easy Halloween baking project to whip up this year. That said, packaged cookie dough is made to spread, so if you’d rather your Frankenstein cookies have rectangular or otherwise shaped faces (as opposed to these round-faced cuties), you can use a classic cut-out cookie dough that will better hold its shape.
Graveyard Cake
Halloween desserts definitely call for having a little extra fun in the kitchen. This kinda-cute, kinda-creepy Graveyard Cake is easy to make, fun to decorate (so recruit the kids’ help), and is sure to be a perfectly spooky centerpiece for any Halloween dessert table.
Candy Corn Cobs
Make this too-cute Halloween food craft with just two ingredients and a bit of assembly. Using prepared cookie dough as a “cob,” simply press kernels of candy corn into place to create a sugary look-alike of corn on the cob. Making these candy corn cobs is an easy and fun Halloween project for kids, and the completed corny confections could be used as playful name card holders for a Halloween dinner party.
Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Tahini Glaze
What better fall-inspired dessert to make than this tahini-glazed pumpkin bundt cake. A medley of fragrant, ground spices enhance the rich sweetness of this incredibly moist bundt cake. Topped with a toasty, perfectly bittersweet tahini glaze, this easy to make and comforting fall dessert is the perfect centerpiece for your next dinner party, Halloween gathering, or special occasion.
Ogre-Eye Cookies
No Halloween party is complete without these cute cookies that, thanks to licorice strips, white chocolate chips and brown M & Ms, look just like monster eyeballs.
Spiderweb Spice Cake
Colored candies are all you need to transform a chocolate cake into a creepy, crawling Halloween-themed cake. Don't worry, even with the spiders you won't be able to resist this delicious confection.
Spider Web Cake
This incredibly fudgy flourless chocolate cake is a much better way to satisfy your own spooky sweet cravings than dipping into your kids’ Halloween candy. Dark and delightful, this rich and chocolatey cake only requires five ingredients and about an hour to pull together.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with Brown Butter
Brown butter takes these rich, seasonal pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to the next level, adding a nutty, fragrant flavor that is absolutely perfect for fall. Canned pumpkin puree lends moisture to these fluffy, cake-like treats while warm chocolate chips fill every bite. Make these for a Halloween party or a fall dinner party, and be sure to store any leftovers in an airtight container.
Mummy Buckeyes
Our two-bite treats are scary-simple to make and a ghoulishly good addition to your spread of haunted sweets. When it comes time to wrap the mummies in chocolate, let the kids help out for a fun holiday craft.
Lemon-Black Sesame Baked Doughnuts
If you need a break from rainbow-smattered sweets and unicorn-coated everything, these deliciously dark doughnuts are exactly what you’re looking for. A bright lemony glaze balances the warm toasty flavors delivered by black sesame seeds for a balanced, not-too-sweet doughnut. Being an oven-baked doughnut, this recipe is perfect for the first-time doughnut maker or anyone who’s not trying to spend their Saturday morning cleaning up a deep-fry station in their kitchen. We used black food dye to intensify the darkness of these doughnuts, but feel free to leave it out if you’d prefer. Beyond being an incredibly tasty way to boycott rainbow foods, these black sesame doughnuts are the perfect treat to whip out for Halloween.
Pumpkin Toffee Crunch Cheesecake
Bring Halloween cheer to the dessert table with this too-cuke cheesecake. Keep it simple by preparing just about everything for this cake ahead of time.
Pumpkin Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze
With a rich, gooey pumpkin spice filling, buttery pecan streusel topping, and maple glaze, this fluffy and moist pumpkin coffee cake is sure to impress. Perfect for any occasion, from your next fall brunch to a Halloween party, this coffee cake is easy to make and full of toasty fall flavors.
Cinnamon-Cider Candied Apples
Wash apples well to remove any waxy coating, and dry thoroughly before dipping them. Work quickly, but if the syrup begins to set, you can reheat it over low heat to liquefy.
Monster Brownies
Your little human monsters will love decorating brownies with chocolate, marshmallows, and M&M's to make these sweet treats. For the base, we doubled the recipe for Dark Chocolate Brownies, baking it in a 9- by 13-in. pan and omitting the glaze. Thin, flat chocolate bars work best for the faces.
Witch's Hat Cake
For a spooky spin on a Halloween-inspired sheet cake, look no further than this festive witch's hat cake. We opted for boxed cake mix for simplicity, but if there's a homemade recipe you prefer, that works too. As long as you're ready to get a little crafty and extra witchy, this easy, Halloween dessert will come together in a flash.
Bat Cake
For the Halloween crafter inside all of this, this simple Halloween sheet cake is a fun, easy dessert to make. Devil’s food cake is very dark chocolaty color, but a red velvet cake would look just as fitting and festive for the bat, too. Piping bags and tips are found in craft stores or specialty baking shops. Be sure to cut the cake rounds in the prescribed order so that the bat’s head with ears comes out as 1 of the cuts.
Frankenstein Cookie Bars
These bars make a fun Halloween treat, and they're very flavorful: the green tea frosting cloaks a chewy-soft coconut-lime cookie. They're easy enough that the kids can help you make them.
Pumpkin Cake
For this festive version of a pumpkin cake, we opted for a "spiced pumpkin" box cake mix, but any box mix will do. Adding powdered sugar to the prepared frosting helps make it thicker and less likely to melt off the cake or get too soft and drippy. It's helpful to use piping bags to get a nicel layer of frosting and then blend together on the pumpkin to get green vines and leaves.
Skeleton Cupcakes
Stop the presses! These too-cute cupcakes are a must-bake for your Halloween party. There's room for creativity on these delicious desserts, so make the faces fun or scary--your choice.
Cemetery Cookie Dessert
Little cookies stand up to resemble little tombstones on this easy-to-make dessert.
Transylvanian Truffles
At just a quarter a pop, these decadent and rich chocolate truffles will be the hit of your Halloween gathering. Decorate with mini Halloween candies or roll in toasted nuts, cocoa powder, or powdered sugar.
Red-Velvet Cake Balls with White Chocolate
Dipped in white chocolate, these red-velvet cake balls are perfect for turning into eyeballs on Halloween. With a steady hand and food coloring, David Burtka paints detailed irises and pupils on each one; for the less artistically inclined, an M and M pressed into the white chocolate before it sets makes for a quick-and-easy creepy alternative.
Pumpkin-Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches
These whoopie pies give a whole knew meaning to cake and ice cream! Vanilla ice cream is sandwiched between the festive orange cakes that are pack with pumpkin flavor.
Black Cats & Bats
Don't let these black cats and bats scare you... they are as sweet as can be.
Dark Soul Fondue
This chocolatey fondue will be a hit at the party. Cut the pound cake into bone shapes or other fun shapes to fit your movie party theme.
Melted Witches
Make a sweet treat that looks like the evil witch has melted right out of her hat.
Mini Caramel Apples
You get all the satisfaction of a caramel apple in one bite and without a messy chin. If decorating with twigs, make sure twigs are food-safe or use craft sticks.
Candy Cake
Use your favorite leftover candy to make this tasty cake. A bittersweet chocolate icing drizzle brings out the sweet chocolate crunch tucked into the Bundt cake.
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies
Gingerbread cutters work if you're making skeletons. You can also use 2 1/2-inch cat or bat cutters. Look for meringue powder at craft stores or in the craft section of some big-box retailers.
Colorful Critters
Make these fun, kid-friendly treats with chocolate-covered snack cakes, assorted candies and chocolate and white icing. They're perfect for birthday parties or after-school snacks,
