How to Make the Nastiest Nibbles for Halloween

Are you planning a Halloween party and are you looking for fun Halloween nibble ideas that are so easy the kids can make them? These are just a few ideas for seasonal Halloween party food that will tickle the fancy of your kids, and they are so simple that they can join in the fun and help to make them.

You don't need fancy equipment or loads of ingredients, just a few items from the store cupboard, a bit of time and lots of imagination. Get the children gathered around for a Halloween Nasty Nibbles party.

HALLOWEEN GHOSTS ON TOAST

OK, so it's only fried or poached eggs on toast, but the children like the name so much they ask for it. A couple of dabs of tomato ketchup, which they can apply themselves, and you have a healthy and funny Halloween snack.

Just a few basics plus a bit of imagination!

With these few basics, you could make endless Halloween party food nibbles! I've done a few but you could go wild! Monsters, ghosts, ghoules - let your imagination run riot.

• Coloured marzipan, pink, white and green or other halloween colours
• Food colouring. Brown or black colour is needed but you can mix this if you have red and green or red, yellow and blue
• Dates and prunes stoned
• Flaked almonds
• Liquorish (I forgot to put this in the pic!)
• A fine paint brush
• A container to mix the colour in
• Things to make eyes - cake decorations, little sweets etc

Make these worms from rolled marzipan and a bit of food colouring paint

To make your worms cut off a piece of marzipan about the size of your thumbnail and roll it into a ball between the palms of your hand. Then, with the ball on one palm, gently roll it with the fingers of the other. You can see how my son is doing it below. If you get lumps in one place, gently roll them until the whole worm is even. Make points at each end and there you are, ready for painting.

Mix up a dark brown or black colour, and holding your brush vertically, make little flicking movements to draw on the segments of your worm. Add eyes, (I know worms don't have eyes, but anyway ....) and there you go.

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Be the best!

To make a skull use white marzipan. Roll it into a ball and squash the lower part of the ball between thumb and forefinger to make a 'chin'. Use the other end of the paintbrush to hollow out eyes and then using a shrp knife make a cut with a knife for the mouth. Pull the knife down to open the mouth up and then paint in the eyes, nose and teeth with the black food colour.

Dates and marzipan transformed into Halloween mice snacks

You've heard of the Three Blind Mice and you've heard of blind dates; well these are blind date mice! They're simple to make and tasty. Suitable for adults as well as kids.

Stuff your stoned dates with pink marzipan. Then, using the same techniques as you used for the worms, make the tails and push into the date. Make little ears by rolling tiny balls of pink marzipan and then squashing them into mouse-ear shapes with your fingers.

Cut tiny slits in the dates and insert the ears. Finally, make eyes out of white or green marzipan or silver ball cake decorations and there you are, your three blind date mice. I put eyes onto mine, which was a mistake I think.

My first attempts at liquorish creepy-crawlies

Spiders

I bought a packet of liquorish rolls and used one of these for the body. I unrolled some of the liquorish and snipped this into strips for the legs and pushed them into the bodies with the help of matchsticks and toothpicks. Then I made marzipan heads and spotted on the eyes.

Fruit flies

I used dates for the fruit flies stuffed with pink marzipan. I cut then make a vertical cut along the back of the date to reveal the marzipan and make the date look like a beetles open back. I used flakes of almonds for the wings, liquorish for the legs and marzipan for the eyes. these are a bit fiddly for young children but my 12 year old son loved making them, and eating them. The dog ate the rest of my marzipan when we were not looking - so watch out!

Use your imagination to add to this list. you could make all sorts of beasties and insects, monsters, bones, whole skelletons and a host of other fun things. Get the kids to make suggestions and I hope you enjoy making and eating these nibbles as much as we did.