As Halloween fast approaches I’ve been looking at ways to keep Little Fox entertained. The half term break means our usual groups and classes aren’t running and mummy needs all the help she can get to keep him busy.
From crafts and baking to home decorating we’re doing it all!
This year, thanks to his new found love of kids on youtube, he has some understanding as to what Halloween is. Taking this into consideration we headed to Crownpoint in Denton to stock up on Halloween supplies.
Between us, we managed to find some amazing decorations all for under £25. With Poundland and Poundworld stocking some fantastic items, such as light up ghosts and window stickers. We could have decorated the whole house.
Our favourite find was a cupcake kit in TK.Maxx, they have a great selection of decorating sets and cookie cutters for creating creepy cakes and cookies this Halloween. I wasn’t sure if it was too scary for him at first but when presented with a selection of ‘cute’ and ‘creepy’ sets he chose this.
Little Fox loves baking and it’s one of our favourite activities to do together, albeit a messy one. A perfect way to entertain him whilst our weekly classes aren’t running. He doesn’t take the most care when it comes to decorating his bakes either but he definitely enjoys it. And of course, we all like to eat the outcome.
These Halloween cakes came with a mix but they would be easy to create with some themed toppers. Whether from a ready-made kit or not, using our favourite chocolate cake mix and purchasing some themed toppers you could recreate them too!
Here’s our favourite recipe to use if you want to DIY these cakes, or pop to Crownpoint and grab yourself a kit!
Cake Ingredients:
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F.
- Line a muffin tin with cases
- Put the cocoa and 100g / half cup dark muscovado sugar into a bowl with a bit of space to spare, and pour in the boiling water. Whisk to mix, then set aside.
- Cream the butter and caster sugar together, beating well until pale and fluffy; I find this easiest with a freestanding mixer, but by hand wouldn’t kill you.
- While this is going on – or as soon as you stop if you’re mixing by hand – stir the flour, baking powder and bicarb together in another bowl, and set aside for a moment.
- Dribble the vanilla extract into the creamed butter and sugar – mixing all the while – then drop in 1 egg, quickly followed by a scoopful of flour mixture, then the second egg.
- Keep mixing and incorporate the rest of the dried ingredients for the cake, then finally mix and fold in the cocoa mixture, scraping its bowl well with a spatula.
- Divide this chocolate batter between the cases and put in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Take the tray out and leave the tray on a wire rack for 5–10 minutes, before turning the cakes out to cool.
- Add chocolate frosting (recipe here) sprinkles, and toppers to suit your theme!
The kit we used was really simple to follow and the outcome is perfect for any Halloween themed parties you may have planned! Although I don’t think ours will last that long. Oooops!
