Cool Kids Halloween Games

So you're throwing a Halloween party this year for your kids, eh? Have you thought about how you're going to entertain your little guests? Here are some cool kids Halloween games that will make your party a hit with kids of all ages!

Wrap the Mummy '

I've often used this game in classroom parties, and it's always a hit.
Divide the children into groups of three to five kids.
Select one child in each group to be a mummy.
Then give the other children a roll of toilet paper or crepe paper.
Instruct them to wrap the mummy with the paper, leaving the eyes, nose and mouth uncovered.
The first group to be done with their roll of paper, wins.

Make the Zombies Laugh

Tell all the children to lie still on the floor like a zombie.
Select one child to be "it".
That child's job is to make the other children laugh.
"It" can make funny faces, dance, act silly, whatever inspires him or her.
Once a "zombie" laughs, he or she can join "it" in attempting to make the group laugh.
Whoever holds out the longest without laughing is the winner.

Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin

Tack a large cardboard pumpkin to a wall.
In turn, blindfold each child and give them a black cutout shape of a nose with double-side tape on the back.
Have them walk up to the wall and pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Halloween Costume Parade

Why not hold a kids' Halloween costume parade?
Kids can show off their Halloween costumes, by parading down the length of the party room one by one.
You can give prizes for the scariest, prettiest, most stylish or most imaginative costume.

Best Dressed Pumpkin Competition

You might be very crafty with real or plastic pumpkins for the kids to decorate; or you may prefer to cut out pumpkin shapes from orange card and provide the children with stickers, pens and glitter to make a best-dressed pumpkin. These kids Halloween games are real winners
Eyeball Hunt Game

Fill a large pot with cooked spaghetti noodles, and then bury ping pong balls in the noodles.
See who can find the most balls in a set amount of time.
For an added twist you can color code the balls and have each color worth a different amount of points.
After the set amount of times, count up the points earned by each player.

Three Great Halloween Cake Ideas

If you're celebrating Halloween with a party this year, chances are that you'll want to have a stunning cake to wow your guests. Here are three Halloween cake ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

Haunted House:

For those who are ambitious in the kitchen, a haunted house makes a perfect Halloween cake. Take one sheet cake and frost with black or brown frosting for the base of the cake. Then, with a second sheet cake, cut up pieces of cake to construct a "house" which is held together on top of the base with frosting (and wooden skewers, if necessary). Then frost the house and add windows, doors, scary pumpkins, and spooky bats. A graveyard beside the house with creepy ghosts and spindly trees is an added bonus.

Kid-Friendly:

For kid-friendly fare, a spider web Halloween cake is great. Cover a plain round two-layer cake in black frosting. Then, pipe on white frosting in the shape of a spider web. In the center of the web, create a large spider, either with frosting or with non-edible decorations like a black pom-pom and pipe cleaners.

Scary:

A scary Halloween cake is perfect for more grown-up gatherings. Body parts are a great idea: a cake in the shape of a severed hand, skull with oozing green filling, or bleeding heart can all be simple to make but have a huge effect on your guests. If you can't find a cake pan in the shape that you want, get creative and look at other cake pans that you might be able to use to achieve the shape you want. If all else fails, just make a sheet cake and cut it into the required shape.

Your next Halloween cake can be as tame or as spooky as you like it. The important thing is to have fun with it and make it a truly unique part of your celebration. When the sugar highs wear off and the costumes have been tucked away into the closet, everyone will remember the effort you put into making your Halloween cake special.

Jack o' Lantern Halloween Cake - A Bundt Cake Treat!

Just as Jack o' Lanterns can inspire laughter, the heebie-jeebies, or a round of "Trick or Treat!" so can your sculpted Jack o' Lantern cakes!

If you're new to cake decorating or cake sculpting, you'll find the Jack O' Lantern cake is fun and easy. And, if you're already experienced, you will have all the more fun by adding intricate details. Either way, this Jack o' Lantern Halloween cake is sure to light up faces at your next Halloween party.

Jack o' Lantern Cake Instructions

Before you whip up a batch of buttercream, take out a piece of paper and sketch some Jack o' Lantern faces. If you have kids at the house, enlist their help. Searching “Google Images” for Jack o' Lantern will also deliver lots of ideas. Once you've narrowed down your favorites to a final selection, practice drawing it to make the piping easier.

Ready? Here we go!

1. Bake 2 Bundt cakes. Coincidentally, pumpkin works like a charm for a Halloween sculpture cake because of its firmness (see recipe below). Butter cake works well too.

2. After releasing and cooling the 2 cakes, level the bottoms.

3. Ice the bottoms with orange buttercream (non crusting is best for this project). Place one upsidedown, and the other on top, so the iced bottoms fit together.

4. Now, cover the cake with orange buttercream. As you smooth your icing, you can work with the natural indentions left by the Bundt pans that mimic the vertical lines on a real pumpkin.

5. Using the orange buttercream, pipe the outlines of the facial features. If you make a mistake, just smooth it and start over. 5. Now for the fun part! Here are a few ideas for creating the details of your Jack o' Lantern's face.

a. Fit an icing bag with a small star tip and fill with chocolate buttercream. Fill in the eyes, nose and gaps between the teeth.

b. After completing the step above, add details such as pupils to the eyes with icing candies, like M&M's and black licorice.

c. To make your Jack o' Lantern glow, use yellow gel instead of chocolate buttercream (remember not to cover the teeth and other places that would be left intact in a real Jack o' Lantern).

d. Instead of piping facial features, bring Jack to life by modeling eyes, nose, teeth and any other features you want to add (eyebrows?) with rolled butterceam icing or marzipan.

Just like a real Jack O' Lantern your Bundt o' Lantern will have a hole in the top. Here are a few ways you can put the lid on Jack.

a. Cover an ice cream cone with green or chocolate buttercream and using icing, adhere this upside down over the hole in the top. Then using a large leaf tip, pipe a few green leaves around the top.

b. Model the stem and leaves with rolled buttercream.

c. Save just enough batter from the recipe below to make a cupcake. Trim it for the stem shape you want and adhere with icing to the top.

And here's your pumpkin cake recipe!

Halloween Pumpkin Cake

Note: This pumpkin cake makes a great treat for grown-ups too, and it's even more devilishly delicious with a buttercream and chopped nuts icing.

4 cups canned pumpkin

6 cups sugar

2 cup vegetable oil

6 eggs

6 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour 2 10-inch Bundt pans. Blend the pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs. Sift remaining ingredients into a separate bowl. Mixing as you add it, spoon the pumpkin mixture into the dry mixture. Blend well. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middles comes out clean (around an hour and 15 minutes). Allow cakes to cool in pans for 5 minutes. Release, and after completely cooled, decorate.

Serving Tip: This is even better tasting and easier to work with after mellowing overnight, covered in the refrigerator.

The Homemade Pumpkin Cake recipe is adapted from "Cake Decorating Made Easy!" Here's what one reader wrote about our Video Books:

"Incomparable! I've not opened my other books now that I have yours...don't decorate another cake until you've seen these Video Books!"

Pia, Lynnwood, WA

Last but not least, here's one more tip. The quantity of liquid food coloring needed to concoct Halloween brown and black will bring a bitter flavor to your buttercream. Here's what you can do to keep the ghoulish elements in the design and out of the icing:

• Instead of liquid food coloring, opt for the more intense gel or paste forms. Can't find these locally? Try www.CandyLandCrafts.com

• Use chocolate for brown and start with dark chocolate for black (and you won't need as much black food coloring).

• Skip the chocolate and food colorings, and use instead candy and cookies. String black licorice works great for outlining. Crush, dark chocolate cookies or crumble dark chocolate cake to use to fill in large areas, like around Jack's teeth.

Happy Halloween Cake Making!

Gather The Family For a "Bootiful" Halloween Family Dinner!

They say that by eating at least one meal a day together is critical to a family's success! By doing this, children are less likely to get into serious trouble that beset a lot of families today. Here is a way to make a meal time a lot of fun and one that your kids will be talking about long after Halloween is done!

Here is a recipe for "Dinner in a Pumpkin" that was given to me by one of my favorite aunt's. It has become a family tradition in our home. I have suggested a whole menu and you can adapt it to fit your family's needs. This is our main meal before we start on our house to house adventure for the evening on Halloween!

Back to planning the menu:

Dinner in a Pumpkin, Monster Mash Veggie Dip, Eyeball Appetizers, Pumpkin Sh sped Gelatin Fruit Salad, Scarecrow Cornbread, and Pumpkin Nut Bars.

Dinner in A Pumpkin

1 small pumpkin about 10" across and clean out the seeds

Combine the following on the stove: 2lbs. hamburger, 1 cup chopped onion and 1 chopped green pepper. Drain the grease once it's done Add 1-2 cups cooked rice, 1 1/2 t. salt, 2t. ground oregano, 1t. pepper, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 1/3 cup green stuffed olives, 1 can tomato soup, 3 eggs, beaten, and more salt and pepper. Clean out the pumpkin and put the ingredients inside the pumpkin. Put the pumpkin lid back on the pumpkin. Place pumpkin on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Serve dinner from the pumpkin; and serve cooked pumpkin too! "Frightfully good!"

Pumpkin Shaped Orange Gelatin Fruit Salad

Dissolve a 6 oz. package of orange gelatin dessert, mix in 2 c. boiling water. Add 2 cups of Ginger Ale. You can add a variety of fruit such as mandarin oranges, grated carrots, bananas, fruit cocktail, marshmallows, etc...or just chill it without fruit. Put it in a 1 quart deep bowl and chill it until very firm. Unmold on a plate and decorate with whipped cream eyes, nose, mouth, collar, and hat. Get creative and can use other edible fruit or candies to decorate with. Add long green gumdrop stem. "Bootiful"!

Eyeball Appetizers

Put eggs in a pan of water and boil until done. Once they are cooled, peel and prepare like deviled eggs. Take a small container of red icing and pipe lines through it like veins in an eye. Add a slice of black olive in the middle to give the effect of an eyeball. "Devilish"!

Witches Brew

Apple juice, 1 liter of lemon/lime carbonated drink. Mix the two together and then add some dry ice right before serving time. Watch the fog appear! "Bewitching"!

Monster Mash Veggie Dip

1 8 oz cream cheese 1 T. beef bouillon dissolved in milk 1 green onion, chopped

Mix these ingredients together and add milk to desired consistency and add a little orange food coloring. You can also throw in some chopped olive and chopped celery. Serve with a variety of veggies! "Scary good"!

Scarecrow Cornbread

3 eggs 1 1/2 t. milk 1 1/2 cube butter, melted 3 cups Biscuit Mix 4 heaping T. Cornmeal 1 t. baking powder 1 1/2 cup sugar Orange Food coloring

Beat eggs. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Put into a well greased 11 x 14" pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let it cool and cut into squares. Serve with honey butter (tinted green)! It's a scream!

Pumpkin Nut Bars (another family favorite)

1/2 c. shortening 1t. cinnamon 1/2 c. brown sugar

1/4 t. nutmeg & ginger 1 cup flour

2/3 cup pumpkin 1/2 t. soda 2 eggs 1/2 t. baking powder 1 t. vanilla 1/2 c. chopped nuts

Mix all ingredients well together. Bake in a 9 x 13" pan at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Frost with powdered sugar, margarine, and orange juice. Sprinkle black and orange sprinkles on top! "Mummy Yummy"!

So try your hand at this fun Halloween family dinner. Surprise your family with a new tradition and see if they don't request this dinner again next year. Plan some fun games at the dinner table or come up with some Halloween jokes to share. Prepare your kiddos for the night's festivities by first filling their tummies with lots of these yummies!

Don't forget to make your table look appetizing with some Halloween decor along with your festive food. Your family will be glad you took the time to celebrate a Happy Halloween with them!