It's no secret that I adore being festive, but Halloween is such a special time for me! I have such fond memories of dressing p ang going from door to door in the early 90s with my friends and my sister, playing trick or treat! We certainly egg bombed and toilet papered a few houses of people who were just plain mean :p we showed mercy to unprepared houses who were kind to us, even if they didn't have any candy/ sweets for us.
It's taken a long time to catch on here in South Africa. Probably due to staunch religious beliefs and misunderstandings regarding what Halloween is really about.
Firstly, it's harmless fun and it has nothing to do with the devil or his birthday. Halloween is supposed to be a special night where the lines between the spiritual realm and our on realm, blur. And while it is totally fun to lean into the spooky side, with ghost walks and midnight scary stories, it's so much deeper than that!
Since the end of lockdown though, our local community walks and houses that get involved in going all out with decorations an treats for the kiddies has just exploded exponentially. Even people who may have had their reservations, for whatever reason, have stated showing up and joining the crowd. The neighborhood watch and local law enforcement has also showed their support by making sure they are visible while our kids have harmless fun, just to let us know they are keeping us safe.
So, back to the baking part of this, I have been planning to make Halloween themed, fondant covered cookies for some time now and have bought a kilo of fondant and all the gel colours I need. I have deeply considered royal Icing, but I know it's going to just be messy and frustrating, especially as I am going to be doing this with the kids and want to avod then ding themselves and making a huge mess, which we will probably do anyway :p ad although I don't want to, I will have to make a few batches of royal icing for writing, details, And a neat background flood. I am going to stick to six colours though: black, white, purple, green, orange and grey.
I need more piping bags! Lol!
My idea is to do one shape of cookie, and then individualize each one with a chosen background colour and something creative on top, like witch hats, black cats, ghosts, vampires and the like. I even got drawing the other day (thanks to Pinterest for inspiration! . And I will definitely look at a few more. I'm going to leave the easy ones to the boys, creating cardboard templated for them of easy stuff, while I am hoping Aime and I can get creative by learning how to paint onto fondant to make some of the more "technically advanced" cookies come to life.
I also want to bake a batch (or two 1 x vanilla and 1 x chocolate) cupcakes which will allow for 3D spookie models which will be super fun to make!
Well, I have to start by baking the cookies first, so wish me luck! I will post updates as we go!
**I will definitely have them up for sale as:
All images are courtesy of pinterest)
and https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/best-sugar-cookies/=https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/sallys-baking-101/
However, these are my doodles :)
