This year the shops seem to offer more Halloween treats than ever before, as Malta embraces the pagan-turned-secular holiday. But the costs can soon add up! Natalie Bowen puts together some homemade surprises for party guests.

Haunted gingerbread house

Gingerbread houses are often associated with Christmas, but with a few tweaks an edible haunted house can make a fantastic party centrepiece. It will get your guests talking and as they inevitably help themselves to a bite, the crumbling will add to the effect. This recipe adapted from BBC Good Food* is a foolproof version – with enough left over to make some gingerbread biscuits!

Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Ingredients
250g unsalted butter
200g dark muscovado sugar
7 tbsps golden syrup
600g plain flour
4 tsps ground ginger
2 tsps bicarbonate of soda
125g bag flaked almonds
3 egg whites
500g icing sugar
Black food colouring
125g pack of mini chocolate fingers
Gummy sweets to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C.

2. Melt together the butter, sugar and golden syrup over a low heat. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda, then stir in the melted butter mixture with a wooden spoon until it forms a smooth ball of dough.

3. Using greaseproof paper, draw a 12cm x 9.5cm rectangle and a 25cm x 20cm rectangle for the small side walls and roof slates, then a 18cm x 9.5cm rectangle with a triangle stretching out 20cm on top for the front walls. A template can be downloaded from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/sites/bbcgoodfood.com/files/editor_files/gingerbread-house-2576.pdf

4. Put a quarter of the dough on more greaseproof paper and roll it out to the thickness of two one-euro coins. Cut out the first of the six pieces of the house, combining the off-cuts and re-rolling the dough to have enough for all six pieces. If there is excess, either make some spare parts in case one of the sections breaks during assembly or cut out some fun shaped biscuits.

5. Press the flaked almonds, pointy side up, in rows on the roof slate rectangles to resemble tiles.

6. Bake in the oven on a baking tray, in batches if necessary, for 12 minutes, or until golden and slightly darker in the middle.

7. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack, trim around the templates to get a crisp edge and leave to go cold.

8. Mix the egg whites and sifted icing sugar together, then add a few drops of food colouring to make a thick, grey icing.

9. Liberally apply the icing to the walls of the house, join them together and leave for a couple of hours until the icing is set. If possible, use a small cup in the centre to support the walls as the icing dries.

10. Apply icing to the bottom edges of the roof slates and press them on the diagonal edges of the front and back walls. Again, leave to set.

11. When you are sure the house won’t collapse, start decorating. Use icing to ‘glue’ mini chocolate fingers to the side walls and use three to create a door, then draw windows and cobwebs across the house. Use shaped gummy sweets (I chose bats, cats and pumpkins) to decorate as you wish.

*Original recipe by Jane Hornby

Webby walls

If you have large doors, then covering them up with giant webs can be a cheap way to decorate. All you need is some yarn, wool or string and some tape.

In this example, I want to signal this room as ‘off-limits’ to party guests, so I created a web across the door to keep them out – adding a spider created as part of the window dressing to underline my message!

To create the web itself, first stretch out the base – the long strands from the centre to the edges. Cut lengths of wool and tape the edges down. If you want to make a round web, start with a cross shape then add as many arms as you like. I fanned this example out in a quarter circle, using six pieces of string.

Then start adding the rings. Tie one end to the top strand, then loop around each of the next strand to create ‘partitions’ until you reach the end.

If you want a neat look, tie off and start a new ring, otherwise for a raggedy design turn the length of string back and start looping diagonally back again and keep going until the web is complete.

Tie off the final section and add any spiders/flies/wrapped bodies as you deem fit!

Spooky window dressing

Get the party started before anyone even enters with window decorations that give a ghoulish look to your home.

Get A2 sheets of coloured card – black, white, purple and orange are solid Halloween colours for example – and draw some spooky shapes on one side.

Simple outlines include cats, bats and ghosts, while more ambitious designs could include spooky house shapes or eldritch trees. Google Images­ is a great source of inspiration or let your imagination go. Remember that they will be illuminated from behind, so include bold outlines and cut-out sections for eyes.

When you are happy with the designs, cut them out and use the reverse side as the front, so any mistakes with the drawing are hidden.

Using double-sided sticky tape or Blu-Tack, attach the decorations to windows so they are illuminated from the inside lighting.

They can also be used on walls, doors, bathroom ­mirrors: everywhere you can think of to surprise your party guests.