Halloween Spiderweb Slime Soup and Spooky Cupcakes!

Just to let you know, this post was written before I started the paleo diet to help ease my psoriasis. Nowadays I eat a more allergy-friendly diet, but leave these older, non-paleo posts up in case they are useful to readers, as I know not everyone eats the same as I do. Thanks for your understanding. 

Halloween is brilliant – it’s an excuse to go mad with the way food is decorated and the ingredients used. I present my Halloween Spiderweb Soup and Spooky Cupcakes – they both went down a treat – or was that a trick?! (mwah hahahahahaaaa!!)

The Spiderweb Slime Soup is just pea soup, with a spiral drizzled in using double cream. The spiral is then dragged out from the centre using the point of a knife or skewer to make the lovely cobweb design.

The problem I have with Halloween and the children is that before they go off to party and get full up on sweets and crisps I really want them to eat something healthy in the day. We ate this for an early dinner before they went out and all loved it.

Recipe for Spiderweb Slime Soup:
Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 large-ish potatoes, peeled and diced
500ml chicken stock (I use a stock cube)
300ml milk
1 pint frozen peas
salt and pepper, to taste
small pot of double cream, for swirling

Method:

1. Fry onion and garlic in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes until starting to soften. Tip in the potatoes and stir for about 1 minute before adding the stock and milk. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.
2. Tip in the frozen peas, stir and allow to bubble for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft and cooked through.
3. Blend until smooth and season with the salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls. Pour the double cream into a jug – this will make it easier to pour in a rhythmic circle – from the pot it is more difficult. Swirl a thin line of the cream in a swirl starting at the centre of the bowl. Take a knife or skewer and drag it from the centre of the swirl to make the spiderweb effect. Serve straight away.

Just the thing for providing warmth and sustenance after a night’s trick or treating!!

The Spooky Cupcakes were a chance for me to get out my edible glitters, Halloween sweets and food colouring (just a drop, mind – the children were already bouncing off the walls after all those Halloween sweets!).

I used Nigella’s absolutely fab cupcake recipe which is what I always use for making cakes for the school fairs or for parties. They are light, soft and vanilla-flavoured – lush. When they were cool, I then mixed up some pale green buttercream icing using the formula in Kate Shirazi’s Cupcake Magic book: 225g sifted icing sugar, 100g soft unsalted butter and half a teaspoon vanilla essence. The addition of a few drops of boiling water from the kettle softened the mixture and then a few drops of green food colouring made it all turn a delicate but still un-nerving pale green.

 

After piping the icing on the cakes, I then set to work adorning and embellishing with worm, teeth, lips and fang sweets – the teeth were my favourite. A sprinkle of red edible glitter here and there and some chocolate stars and I was done. The children were happy to have some home-made Halloween fare and I was happy to indulge myself in a spot of Halloween kitchen-tinkering. Just wait until Christmas.

Check out the books I used here on Amazon: (affiliate links):