Halloween Treats!

Halloween was lots of fun yesterday.  Brian and I spent the day making sweet treats and then gorged ourselves on them all through the night!  Our delicacies were very simple and definitely delicious.

Homemade Orange Marshmallows

For this treat, bloom gelatin in cold water for ten minutes.  Meanwhile, make a syrup with sugar and evaporated milk.  Once the syrup registers 240 degrees (you'll need a candy thermometer for this) add it to the gelatin and beat it for ten minutes with a hand mixer until it is very thick and fluffy.  At this point we added vanilla and orange zest to give our marshmallows a fun flavor!  In a square or rectangular baking dish (buttered and dusted with powdered sugar) pour the marshmallow mixture and let it rest for two hours or so.  We covered ours in orange sugar to give it a more fitting Halloween appearance, cut it into squares, and stuck them with lollipop sticks!

Caramel Apples

A quintessential autumn favorite!  First make some caramel by cooking sugar with a little bit of water until dark brown.  Off the heat, add some heavy cream and butter.  Once the butter has melted, dip your washed apples into your homemade caramel sauce.  We died our caramel red (although the photo makes it seem brown) and covered them with some Halloween sprinkles.  The caramel apple sticks and the lollipop sticks from the previous recipe were hard to find, but we eventually located them at a kitchen supply store called Bosch.

Chocolate Truffles

You can't have a celebration without chocolate!  Brian and I made these truffles by first making a ganache, which is just chocolate that's been emulsified with heavy cream.  We used white chocolate and died it orange for Halloween.  You then put the ganache into the fridge to firm up, and in the mean time you make tempered chocolate by melting half a bar of dark chocolate and then stirring in the rest of the bar and letting it melt from the residual heat.  This will cool down the temperature of the chocolate and allow it to harden once again.  With a melon baller, scoop out small portions of the ganache and roll into balls.  Using a skewer, dip the balls into the melted chocolate and roll into any toppings such as hazelnuts or coconut.  We placed ours into white paper cups and let them sit at room temperature until the chocolate coating hardened (if the chocolate wasn't properly tempered you might have to put them into the fridge to harden).  It's a happy little surprise to bite into the truffle and discover the fun orange color inside!

Chocolate-Dipped Bacon

If you are unfamiliar with the amazing sweet-and-salty combination of bacon and chocolate then you are severely missing out on one of life's greatest joys!  Simply cook up some bacon as you would normally, then follow the directions above for making tempered dark chocolate.  Dip one end of the bacon strip into the chocolate, throw on some Halloween sprinkles, and allow the chocolate to harden.  I probably ate about six of these last night!