Happy Halloween! For Lucas’ first halloween we took him to visit his grandparents and great grandparents.
He was a not so scary looking skeleton. I bought a skeleton all in one and ‘my first spooky halloween’ bib from Tesco.
I carved 2 pumpkins. The first I carved a heart for World Vision, the idea is you carve a heart in the pumpkin and text HEART to 70060 to donate £5, helping children living in fear.
The second pumpkin I carved was an image of a baby in a pram that I found from The Pumpkin Lady. It is meant to have Baby’s 1st carved across the pram but that got a little too tricky for me.
With the pumpkin I made Glorious Roasted Pumpkin Soup from Jamie Oliver, it was delicious but next year I am going to use less chilli;
• 1.5kg edible pumpkin
• Olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried chilli
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 litre hot vegetable stock
Preheat the oven to 170°C/340°F. Half the pumpkin and remove the seeds (you can keep these for roasting), then chop into wedges. Place the pumpkin on two large baking trays and drizzle over a little olive oil. In a pestle and mortar, grind the chilli and coriander seeds with a pinch of salt until finely ground. Sprinkle the spices over the pumpkin with some black pepper. Roast the pumpkin for 1 hour, or until soft and slightly caramalised at the edges.
Meanwhile, roughly chop the onion, garlic, carrot and celery. Heat a lug of olive oil over a medium heat in a large saucepan then add the vegetables and cook for 15 minutes, or until soft and sweet but not coloured.
When the squash is ready, add to the pan with the hot stock. Blend with a stick blender, adding a little more water if you like a thinner consistency.
I washed and roasted the pumpkin seeds with sea salt and chilli, these were lovely sprinkled in the soup and as a snack.
I baked a halloween cake, this is the first cake I have baked from scratch, I usually use pre-mixed packets. I kept it simple by doing a Victoria Sponge. I used a recipe from BBC Good Food.
200g caster sugar
200g softened butter
4 eggs, beaten
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
For the filling:
100g butter, softened
140g icing sugar, sifted
drop vanilla extract (optional)
half a 340g jar good-quality strawberry jam
-Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Butter two 20cm sandwich tins and line with non-stick baking paper. In a large bowl, beat all the cake ingredients together until you have a smooth, soft batter.
-Divide the mixture between the tins, smooth the surface with a spatula or the back of a spoon, then bake for about 20 mins until golden and the cake springs back when pressed. Turn onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
-To make the filling, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, then gradually beat in icing sugar. Beat in vanilla extract if you’re using it. Spread the butter cream over the bottom of one of the sponges, top it with jam and sandwich the second sponge on top. Dust with a little icing sugar before serving. Keep in an airtight container and eat within 2 days.
- I used orange frosting and halloween sprinkles from Aldi to decorate.
D bought some orange and black balloons and some hanging decorations which Lucas enjoyed scrunching up and batting the balloons around.
I’m not sure Lucas will be awake for a bonfire and fireworks this year so I think meeting Father Christmas will be our next first event x