Night of the ghosts and gobblings

• Gruesome toothsomes gore up the buffet table

Advertiser Staff and News Services

A jack-o'-lantern makes a cheery container for coconut chocolate wolfman cookie monsters ready for youngsters to wolf down. Associated Press

While many people draw the line at making homemade trick-or-treat gifts — since scares about hidden hazards have prompted most parents to bar any but commercially wrapped items — many will be giving parties or taking edibles to the office or shop.

Here are some ideas for goodies to make and give.

The first is both decor and edible nibble: Mini-marzipan pumpkins. These are easy to make with rolls of almond paste available in grocery stores (near the spices and baking supplies) that have a clay-like texture but a subtle, sweet nutty flavor. They take just 20 minutes to make. Group them in a table setting, offer them on a candy tray or use them to decorate your workspace.

Marzipan Pumpkins

• 7-ounce package marzipan or almond paste
• 1 tube yellow food coloring
• 1 tube red food coloring
• A few drops vegetable oil
• A few toothpicks
• A few stalks of mint or nontoxic plants, washed

Mix food coloring, using about 1 part red to 2 parts yellow to get a good pumpkin color. Knead a small amount of food coloring into marzipan, using enough to get a pumpkin color you like.

Take a small piece of the tinted marzipan and form a ball. With your little finger, make a small indentation in the top of the marzipan ball. Dip a toothpick in vegetable oil (this keeps the marzipan from sticking to it). Starting at the ball's "north pole," press the toothpick's side in gently from pole to pole to make vertical pumpkin "creases."

For a final touch, add some tiny stems cut from stalks of mint or other nontoxic plant.

Makes about 15 mini-pumpkins.

Wolfman Cookie Pops

For the cookies:

• 1 cup unsalted butter or margarine
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup shredded coconut, finely chopped and toasted

For the decorations:

• 14-ounce package light cocoa chocolate disks or chocolate candy wafers
• Candy corn
• Yellow candy disks
• 3 cups shredded coconut
• Brown icing color
• Small black candy-coated chocolate dot candies
• Eight (8-inch) cookie treat sticks

To make cookies: Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar in mixer bowl. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix baking powder and flour; add to butter mixture one cup at time, mixing after each addition. If dough is too soft, add up to 1/2 cup additional flour, a little at a time. Stir in 1 cup coconut. Do not chill dough.

Divide dough into two balls. On floured surface, roll each into a circle about 12 inches in diameter and 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with 4-inch-diameter floured cutters. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet on middle rack of oven 6 to 7 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely before decorating.

To decorate 8 Wolfman Cookie Pops: Cut enough chocolate candy disks into triangles for 16 ears; reserve remaining disks. Cut candy corn just above orange area for teeth. Cut yellow candy disks for eyes.

In a large bowl, tint coconut with brown icing color. In small bowl, melt remaining chocolate candy disks (over hot water or in microwave).

Working with one cookie at a time, spread a fine layer of melted chocolate candy over cookie, just enough to hold coconut. Press coconut over cookie, leaving mouth area uncovered; let set. Use dabs of melted chocolate candy to attach to cookie faces the candy ears, teeth, eyes and black dot candies for eye pupils and noses; hold ears until set. Attach cookie treat stick to cookie back, also with melted candy; hold until set. Allow all decorations to set firmly before arranging in container or on plates.

Recipes are from the Associated Press.

Gruesome toothsomes gore up the buffet table

Here are ideas for ghoulish dishes to include in a Halloween haunted house buffet for children, suggested by caterer Rhona Silver of Huntingon Townhouse on Long Island.

• "Haunted" gingerbread house. Make a gingerbread house as for Christmas but give it a spooky appearance with dark colors, broken windows, ghostly figures visible inside, and spun-sugar cobwebs.
• Make shrunken heads by drying whole apples (bake at 250 degrees on a foil-covered baking sheet for a couple of hours), then giving them features with dried cranberries, raisins and nuts.
• "Eyeballs and worms with blood sauce" (eyeballs are little meatballs, worms are spaghetti, and the blood is tomato sauce). Optional extra eyeballs could be made from small mozzarella cheese balls, into each of which you push a slice of black pitted olive; or green olives stuffed with pimento, also sliced.
• "Blood soup" (a rich tomato soup — you could use canned, but make it with cream, add a dollop of basil pesto on top) served in a tureen made of a hollowed-out, unbaked acorn squash.
• "Coffin salad," with bug-shaped vegetables you cut out and a red-tinged vinaigrette (Silver uses blood oranges; you could use tomato puree in a standard vinaigrette recipe).
• End with a disgusting-looking but delicious dessert of these odd sort-of cupcakes.

BooBerry Gobbler

• 6 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon rind
• Prepared pie crust
• 2 cups marshmallow fluff

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine fruit, flour, sugar and lemon rind. Stir to mix well. Pour into muffin pans (if available, use Halloween-related shapes). Crumble pie crust evenly over fruit mixture. Bake for about 50 minutes.

Served topped with marshmallow fluff.