Ghost Meringues

I make this recipe every year for my family and for Halloween parties and it is always a big hit!  It’s great because the recipe is easy and the treats come out light and tasty.

It’s also a great Halloween project to do with the kids, because they can get creative with the shapes and decorations.  In our house our favorite Halloween meringue cookie shapes are ghosts and bones, but the possibilities are endless.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 5 egg whites at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 to 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to taste
• Black gel icing

Directions

1. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Preheat oven to 220 degrees fahrenheit.
3. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar with mixer until soft peaks form, this could take from two to five minutes.  I alwys use a Kitchenaid standing mixer but a hand mixer will work as well.
4. Gradually add sugar while also gradually increasing the mixing speed to medium.
5. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
6. Spoon the mixture into a cake or pastry piping bag with a 1/4 – 1/2 inch tip or with a plastic bag and cut off a 1/4 – 1/2 inch tip at the corner of the bag.
7. Pipe a swirl to make a ghost and repeat until the cookie sheets are filled.
8. Bake for one hour. Then, turn off heat and allow the cookies to sit for at least an hour. Do not open oven at any time during the baking process.
9. Use black gel icing to make eyes and mouths on the ghosts.
10. Carefully remove cookies from parchment paper and enjoy them while they are fresh or store in an airtight container.

If you want to make meringue bones, simply pipe a 3-4 inch line and add two balls to the end of each.

Recipe yields 3-4 dozen.

Related posts:

1. Hosting Halloween Hooplas

Party Favors & Halloween Bags:

• Halloween Grab Bags
• Spider Favor Boxes
• Halloween Candy Box
• Pumpkin Party Favor Bag

Crochet & Quilts

• Happy Halloween Candy Corn Mini Quilt
• Crocheted Ghost and Candy Corn Figurines
• Crocheted Ghost Halloween Bag

Jack o’ Lanterns, Candles & Lights:

• Secrets to a Perfect Jack-o-Lantern
• Easy-to-Make Gourd Candles
• Spooky and Glitzy Candles
• Soda Bottle Luminaries
• Halloween Lanterns

Halloween Birdhouses:

• Haunted Birdhouse
• Pumpkin Harvest Birdhouse

Halloween Treats & Party Ideas:

• Warm & Creamy Halloween Drinks
• Nutella Spiced Sugar Cookies
• Haunted Gingerbread House
• Candy-Speckled Popcorn Cakes
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Halloween Decor:

• Halloween Tombstone Yard Decorations
• Ghastly Halloween Garland
• Pumpkin Placemat
• Make a Friendly Ghost
• Soft Sculpture Pumpkin
• Ghoulish Gourds
• Spooky Spider
• Bat & Pumpkin Mobile
• Haunted Halloween Tombstones
• Witches Brew Wall Hanging
• Haunted House Centerpiece

More Halloween Craft Projects:

Halloween Crafts – find loads of crafts to do including making a pumpkin tree, a scarecrow, a glass pumpkin candle, hanging ghosts, costumes, games, and more.

Halloween Crafts for Kids – lots of fun and easy crafts for kids of all ages, perfect for school projects or for doing with the family.

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Top 10 Halloween Stuff on the Web for 2009

Haunted Gingerbread House at Savvy Halloween

1. Make your own Halloween gingerbread house! Savvy Halloween shows you how to make a Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House, gives a recipe for the gingerbread and icing, and even provides a pattern for users to print off and use.

2. Halloween recipes galore!  Disney’s Family Fun has enough recipes to keep you and your family busy for all of autumn!  Most are easy, fun, and best of all, they come with pictures so you can get a good visual of the treats.

3. Who doesn’t love checking out pets in costumes?  Well the Baltimore Sun has a ton of user-submitted dressed up pets all for the looking.

4. Sometimes commercials can be just as entertaining if not more than the shows themselves, and Smashing Apps has highlighted 19 great Halloween ads for your viewing pleasure in their post, 19 Creative Halloween Advertisements.

5. Play one of our favorite Halloween games, Halloween Pumpkins, right here!

6. Pumpkin carving at Martha Stewart – MarthaStewart.com offers pumpkin templates, pumpkin projects for kids, pumpkin creatures, and more of Martha’s tips and tricks for creating gorgeous jack o’ lanterns of your own.

And the last four are our favorite Halloween videos with instructions on making some fun & spooky Halloween crafts and treats!

7. Halloween Cat Origami for kids and adults:

8. Halloween Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls Recipe:

9. Spirited Halloween Cupcakes from Food Network:

10. And finally, catch up on your Halloween history with this video from National Geographic:

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Since these are becoming more popular, you can now easily find Halloween trees to decorate in most local home/hardware stores. Thinking of decorating your own? Here are five spooky ideas for decorating a Halloween tree:

1. Lights – a must! Nothing makes a holiday tree sparkle as much as twinkling lights, and a Halloween tree is no exception. Most that are for sale already come with lights, but if you find a tree that you want that doesn’t come with lights, fear not, Halloween lights are affordable and abundant in stores. Glowing oranges and purples will set the mood like nothing else!

2. Handmade Halloween decorations. This is what will make your tree unique and special, and you can easily make cute decorations like the following without spending a bundle:

Ghostie

To make this little guy, simply take one tissue and ball it up (for the head), and then cover the ball with another tissue. Then take one white pipe cleaner and bend it around the neck and bend the ends to make hands. Take a black marker for eyes and a mouth, and voila! You now have a ghostie to hang on your tree. Take a needle and thread and sew it through the top to create a loop for hanging.

3. Popcorn/candy corn garland. String together some popcorn and/or candy corn for use as an autumnal garland.

4. More Halloween garlands. There are lots of cool Halloween garlands available in stores that are affordable as well as attractive. Don’t be afraid to wrap one around your tree.

5. Halloween ornaments. You can now find collectible Halloween ornaments for sale at Hallmark and other stores, if you love Halloween, then slowly building a Halloween ornament collection can become a great hobby and make for a beautiful Halloween tree!

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Warm & Creamy Halloween Drinks

On a crisp autumn day you can surprise the little ones coming home from school with these warm and sweet treats, make them together as a family, or treat the ghouls and goblins stopping by your door on Halloween with this warm beverage.

Whether you’re entertaining or gathering the family together to make yummy Halloween treats – these easy-to-make drinks will have everybody coming back for more.

Make simply delicious vanilla Hallo-Cream, ominous Orange Hallo-Cream, or ghoulishly green Mint Hallo-Cream:

Vanilla Hallo-Cream

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon milk or soy milk
• 1 pound vanilla flavored CandiQuik
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Red and yellow food coloring
• Whipped cream
• Sprinkles or nonpareils

Instructions:

1. Heat milk on the stovetop on medium heat for five minutes.
2. Chop the CandiQuik into small pieces and place into a heat resistant bowl.
3. Pour the heated milk over the CandiQuik chunks and stir until candy is melted.
4. Stir in vanilla.
5. Add three drops of red food coloring and 12 drops of yellow food coloring to make orange.
6. Pour drink mixture into glasses, top with whipped cream and nonpareils or sprinkles and serve!

Orange Hallo-Cream

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon milk or soy milk
• 1 pound vanilla flavored CandiQuik
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon orange extract
• Red and yellow food coloring
• Whipped cream
• Sprinkles or nonpareils

Instructions:

1. Heat milk on the stovetop on medium heat for five minutes.
2. Chop the CandiQuik into small pieces and place into a heat resistant bowl.
3. Pour the heated milk over the CandiQuik chunks and stir until candy is melted.
4. Stir in vanilla and orange extract.
5. Add three drops of red food coloring and 12 drops of yellow food coloring to make orange.
6. Pour drink mixture into glasses, top with whipped cream and nonpareils or sprinkles and serve!

Mint Hallo-Cream

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon milk or soy milk
• 1 pound vanilla flavored CandiQuik
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• Green food coloring
• Whipped cream
• Sprinkles or nonpareils

Instructions:

1. Heat milk on the stovetop on medium heat for five minutes.
2. Chop the CandiQuik into small pieces and place into a heat resistant bowl.
3. Pour the heated milk over the CandiQuik chunks and stir until candy is melted.
4. Stir in vanilla and peppermint extract.
5. Add eight drops of green food coloring to make green.
6. Pour drink mixture into glasses, top with whipped cream and nonpareils or sprinkles and serve!

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Create a spooky graveyard in your own front yard!

photo credit: Tammra

photo credit: Tammra

A few broomsticks and some Halloween lights and/or trim can really spruce up a driveway:

photo credit: Ben+Sam

And I find that lights work for any holiday!

photo credit: Wonderlane

photo credit: alicia rae

Related posts:

1. Halloween Pictures of the Week – Jack o Lanterns
2. Halloween Pictures of the Week

photo credit: eyeliam

photo credit: kumar303

“Jack Argh Lantern”

photo credit: AlwaysSecondBest

Here’s a pumpkin lineup with some cute ideas – I think I like the one with the bats best:

photo credit: kdnewton

Related posts:

1. Halloween Pictures of the Week

photo credit: LadyRebecca

photo credit: a. venefica

photo credit: justgrimes

photo credit: brdavids

Those Halloween cookies are deliciously adorable!

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Nutella Spiced Sugar Cookies (recipe below)

Swarms of costumed Harry Potters, Powerpuff Girls, Pokémons, ghosts and witches will take to the streets this Halloween, begging for sweet treats from neighbors and friends. Because many parents worry about their child’s safety while trick-or-treating, do-it-yourself Halloween parties are becoming a popular alternative.

The Halloween Association (THA) indicates that Halloween is the third most-celebrated day of the year, and according to the 2000 American Express retail index, two out of three American households celebrate Halloween. Here are tips for everything from the food to the games for Halloween parties without too much fuss:

Make your own invitations
Let the kids help create invitations for the party. Decorate construction paper with colorful cut-outs, add Halloween-themed stickers or use stamps and ink to create clever invitations. Or, send e-mail invitations or online greeting cards.

Create homemade costumes
Work with your children to invent the family’s Halloween attire. This allows their imagination to reach beyond store-bought costumes and gives them a sense of pride when showing off their handiwork at the party. With a little paint and creativity, a cardboard box can become a die, a spaceship or a favorite book. Old clothing boxed-up in the attic is perfect for a retro look. Plus, you can find princess, wizard and farmer accessories in a second-hand shop.

Prepare easy-to-make Halloween-themed treats
While Halloween means candy overload for many kids and parents, hosts are heading to the kitchen to create homemade treats for partygoers. Serve goodies such as Orange Pumpkin Cupcakes (decorate orange frosting-spread cupcakes with brown and green sprinkles to create a pumpkin), Pumpkin Brains (macaroni and cheese served in a hollowed-out pumpkin with a face) and Nutella Spiced Sugar Cookies (recipe following) to add a ghostly touch. Continue the theme by serving treats on orange and black plastic tableware.

Decorate with style
To get your fright-seeking guests in the Halloween spirit, haunt a room in the house by covering windows with towels and adding cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns, black lights, pictures of witches and goblins and eerie sounds. For younger ones who won’t visit the haunted room, decorate the house with hay bundles, pumpkin lights, streamers and ghosts cut out of construction paper by the kids. Show kid-friendly Halloween-themed movies, such as “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown,” “Casper” or “Goosebumps” to add a festive mood to the party.

Play horrifically fun games
Add a Halloween twist to traditional games to keep kids occupied and make your party a hit with adults, too. Do the limbo to “Monster Mash,” conduct Halloween-themed scavenger hunts and have costume contests to add to the hair-raising experience. For even more fun, offer guests rolls of toilet paper and let them transform each other into paper-wrapped mummies or give kids markers, paper and other materials and let them decorate their own pumpkin.

Nutella Spiced Sugar Cookies
2/3 cup shortening
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Nutella
2 1/2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar, sifted

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, shortening and sugar with a hand mixer on high speed for two minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for one minute. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients on low speed just until combined. Divide the dough in half and press each piece into a disk. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about one hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Divide the dough in half and roll out each piece on wax paper to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out desired shapes (bats, pumpkins, headstones) and bake on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes. Cool completely.

Make the Glaze:
Heat Nutella, milk and confectioner’s sugar in a small pot over low heat until combined and slightly warm. Spread each cookie with the glaze and decorate as desired with jimmies, sprinkles, mini chips or Halloween candy. Allow to set on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container. Makes 24 cookies

These cookies can be baked ahead of time and frozen, unglazed, for up to 6 weeks, if stored in an airtight container.

Nutritional Information Per Serving:
Calories: 210
Protein: 2g
Carbohydrates: 22g
Fat: 12g
Cholesterol: 20mg
Sodium: 100mg
About the Author:

For additional easy-to-prepare recipes using Nutella, a chocolaty hazelnut spread from Europe, visit www.nutellausa.com.

Courtesy of ARA Content, www.ARAcontent.com, e-mail: info@ARAcontent.com

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Take plenty of candid shots to capture the real magic

It’s the time of the year when costume party and trick-or-treating memories are made, but are you taking the best photos to share with friends and family? If you feel like an amateur behind the lens and your pictures stay trapped on your camera, these tips will help you take photos you’ll be proud to share with others.

Here are five cool tricks to make your photos a treat:

Tip 1: Use the flash indoors and out
For the best outcome, always use the flash when taking photos outdoors. The flash will lighten the shadows on the subject’s face caused by the sun. This applies to photos taken outside – no matter what the season.

Tip 2: Take plenty of candid shots to capture the real magic
Take a combination of posed and candid shots to capture the spirit of Halloween. Record meaningful moments such as your family trick-or-treating or children carving a jack-o’-lantern. Try following a child and capturing candid shots at their height-level. Don’t be shy in snapping the shutter; taking several photos will make sure you catch the magic of the evening.

Tip 3: Practice the rule of thirds
Add personality and balance to your photos by dividing the frame into three equal parts. Imagine two imaginary horizontal and two vertical lines in your viewfinder. Some cameras offer a setting to automatically place these lines to make it easier. Position the subject at one of the four points where the lines intersect. Composing your shot using this rule of thumb will create a nicely-balanced, eye-pleasing photo.

Tip 4: Make photo sharing effortless by adding wireless to the camera you already own
Imagine sharing photos of your favorite Halloween moment before you even hand out the last fistful of candy. By using Eye-Fi’s wireless SD memory card, you can turn the camera you already own into a wireless camera. Eye-Fi will automatically upload photos from your camera to your home computer and favorite online photo sharing site like Shutterfly or Kodak Gallery. Plus, storing photos online will keep them safe in case you lose your photo albums in a fire or if your computer is ever stolen or infected by a virus.

Tip 5: Organize your photos with “geotagging”
Geotagging, or adding a “tag” to your photo with the location of where it was taken, helps keep your images organized within your online photo sharing site. As photo memories accumulate within your gallery, you can organize them by location and provide context that will last for years to come. The Eye-Fi Explore wireless memory card automatically tags photos with location information, eliminating the time and hassle of manually doing it yourself. You can also use this information to help plot your photos on a map to record your Halloween travels.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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