I like to individually wrap these for Halloween.  You can get the papers at places like AC Moore or Michaels Arts and Crafts. I usually buy these at SugarCraft.com as you can get various papers for almost anything at great prices.

Maple Pumpkin Fudge

2 cups sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 12 ounce package white chocolate chips
1 7 ounce jar marshmallow creme
1 cup chopped nuts – pecans or walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons maple extract

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, mix sugar, brown sugar, butter, evaporated milk, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices.  Stir constantly, making sure sugar is dissolved.  Once the mixture begins to boil, continue stirring constantly.  Boil this until a candy thermometer reaches the soft ball stage between 234F and 243F degrees.  I usually go for about 237, if possible.

Remove from the heat and stir in the the chocolate chips.  Once the chocolate chips have melted, add in the marshmallow creme, nuts and maple.  Mix well and pour into a lined or buttered pan — use a 13×9 cake pan, if you have it.  Otherwise, pour it into 2 8×8 pans.  Allow to cool and then cut into squares.  Store in an air tight container, and refrigerate up to 10 days.

Butter Toffee Caramel Corn

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon extract – vanilla, maple, almond — your choice
1/4 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
16 cups popcorn (popped!!)
salt to taste
3 cups nuts (mixed, cashews, pecans, or whatever you like)

Heat the oven to 300F.

Pop the popcorn.  I usually need to do two batches.  You can use microwave popcorn, but get unflavored, unbuttered and as “all natural” as you can.  Newmans Own is a good choice, as well as Orville Redenbacher’s “Natural”.

Line a baking sheet with parchment, and then pour the popcorn evenly over the sheet.  Sprinkle the nuts over the popcorn and set the baking sheet aside.

In a saucepan, mix the brown sugar, butter and corn syrup.  You can use light or dark corn syrup, but I prefer the light.  Heat to boiling, and then boil for 5 minutes.  Stir constantly.

Remove the pan from the heat and add in the cream of tarter and baking soda, stiring constantly.  This is going to foam up, just keep mixing it.  Stir in the flavoring.

Pour the mixture over the popcorn and mix well, coating each piece.  This gets messy!  If you have one of those gigantic mixing bowls that people like my Mother always seem to have, you can mix the popcorn in that, and then transfer it to the baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow this to cool, and then break apart.  Once it is totally cool, store in a tightly sealed container or a ziplock bag.

Enjoy!

This is the shape the "bones" should be

Chocolate Mint Diseased Skeleton Bones (Cookies!!)

(aka Chocolate Mint Meringues)

3 large eggs, whites only
1/4 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon peppermint flavoring
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 200F and line two baking sheets with parchment or baking paper.

Beat the egg whites with cream of tarter and salt until quite fluffy.  Slowly add in the sugar, and the peppermint.

Place the mixture in a pastry bag, if you have one.  If you don’t have a pastry bag, place the mixture into a large (gallon sized) ziplock bag, and cut off the very tip.  Go small with the cut, and make it larger if needed.  Even a small cut can end up really large once you start piping.

Next, pipe out “bone shapes” onto the parchment paper.  Don’t make these too small — 2-3 inches.  The shapes can be whatever you think a bone would look like, but I usually do them in a shape of the capital letter ” I “, as above, or like a small moon. Leg bones and ribs, you know ;)

Put both baking sheets in the oven, and then bake for one hour.  Then turn off the oven and allow the cookies to set for another hour.  This should make about 5 dozen or so.

Notes:

• We’ve always called these “diseased” looking cookies.  For the less “diseased” look, leave out the chocolate chips ;)
• You can safely leave out the chocolate chips and cocoa
• If you can let these dry in the oven overnight (no heat!!), they are even better.
• Use whatever flavoring you like — Peppermint, Spearmint, Wintergreen (my fav), almond, vanilla, rum.. up to you and whatever you prefer.
• You can, of course, make these as traditional meringue cookies, just pipe, or spoon these onto the parchment and proceed as instructed.

For Halloween, we served this in a Witches cauldron, which was sitting in a large platter that had dry ice.  Serve with gelatin Pixies, for some more fun, if you can find them.

Enjoy!

Slushy Orange Punch

1 6oz package Orange Jello
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
30 ounce can Pineapple Juice
46 ounce can Apricot Juice
16 ounces orange juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
4 liters Ginger Ale, or Sprite/7-Up

In a large container, dissolve the Jello and sugar in the boiling water, and stir well, until everything is dissolved.  Stir in the juices and mix well. Put in the freezer – I use two of the gallon ziplock bags.

About 2 hours before serving, remove the mixture from the freezer to soften, but not melt totally.  Smash it around in the bags, and then place the contents of one bag in a punch bowl or a similarly large bowl.  If it is not smashed up enough and soft, use a potato masher.  Pour in 1-2 litres of the soda and stir to mix.

Creamy Pumpkin Dip with Cookies

16 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 3/4 cups pumpkin (or a 30ounce can)
4 cups powdered sugar (10x, or icing sugar)
2-4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (to taste)
1 small sugar pumpkin
Small fun candies – candy worms, candy spiders, candy corn, etc.
Shortbread, Oatmeal, GingerSnaps or any other hard cookie.

If you have a hand mixer, this will go a bit easier.

Mix together the cream cheese and pumpkin, until combined.  Add in the sugar and spices and mix well.  Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to meld.

Meanwhile, carve out a pumpkin, removing seeds and strings.  Fill with the pumpkin mixture.  Put this on a plate or a halloween serving plate, and decorate with the small candies.  Looks fun  having the worms “crawling” out of the dip.

Serve with the cookies to dip with.

Note:

If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, use cinnamon, ginger, allspice – 2-4 teaspoons in total.

Variation

Pumpkin Cookie Dip

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
14 ounces marshmallow creme
15 ounces solid-pack pumpkin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated orange peel

In large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and marshmallow creme until smooth. Stir in pumpkin, cinnamon and orange peel. Serve as a dip with gingersnaps.  Keep refrigerated.