Healthy Halloween Recipes

Halloween food tends to conjure up images of gruesome-looking party food or treats so jam-packed full of sugar, your teeth are likely to shatter at the first bite! Well there is no reason why you can’t join in the festivities with these easy to make, healthy (well as healthy as you can be on Halloween) recipes! From flavoursome pumpkin bread to super spooky witches’ fingers, we’ve got Halloween covered this year! We promise there is no trick and only treats…

Pumpkin bread

What is Halloween without a bit of pumpkin? This lovely loaf is made with pumpkin puree, oats and maple and makes the perfect healthy autumnal tea time treat.

Makes one loaf

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 60ml coconut oil, melted, plus a little extra for greasing the tin
• 300g pumpkin puree
• 120ml maple syrup
• 1 tbsp honey
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 360g ground oats
• A sprinkling of sultanas and pumpkin seeds (optional), to add a great texture to your bread

 

 

• 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
  2. Soak the chia seeds in a bowl with five tablespoons water for about 10 minutes.
  3. Grease a 20x12x5cm loaf tin with coconut oil and line it with baking paper.
  4. Place the pumpkin purée, soaked chia seeds, maple syrup, honey, salt, cinnamon and coconut oil in a food processor and blitz. Add 80ml water and combine again.
  5. Place the oats in a big bowl and stir in the pumpkin mixture until everything is combined. If it’s too runny, you can add more oats.
  6. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and pop in the oven for about one hour and 20 minutes, until golden. Insert a knife into the middle and it should come out clean.
  7. Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes, serve and enjoy.

 

Monster Mouths

Apples have always featured at Halloween time. These Monster Mouths are not only great fun to make, they’re also a crunchy, juicy, and nutty natural snack that’s super-simple to put together.

Makes 10

Ingredients

• 5 small eating apples
• 4 to 5 strawberries
• 1 handful of raisins
• 1 handful of flaked almonds
• 10 tsp of almond butter

 

• 1. Slice each apple in half (with the core removed). Cut a triangle slice from the top of each apple to form an open-mouth shape.
  2. Cut the strawberries into slices to make the tongue shape.
  3. Insert a teaspoon of almond nut butter into the cut-out groove in each apple.
  4. Place a slice of strawberry on the bottom half of the groove, with the wide side of the strawberry in the almond butter to hold it in place.
  5. Then insert 3 to 4 flaked almonds into the top of the opposite side of the groove to form a row of teeth. For the eyes, place a little nut butter on the apple skin and place another almond flake on top as the white of the eye. Similarly, put a little nut butter on a raisin to hold it in place and place the raisin in the centre of the almond flake.
  6. Add one eye each side or just one in the middle to create a Cyclops-effect Monster mouth.

 

Top tip: You can also substitute the almond butter with peanut butter or any other healthy spread of your choice.

Almond butter chocolates

This recipe is deceivingly healthy, as these nutty filled chocolates are sweetened with maple syrup, meaning they are free-from refined sugar and free-from guilt!

Makes about 30 chocolates, depending on the size of your moulds

Ingredients

(For the chocolate)

• 100g cacao butter
• 6 tbsp maple syrup
• 4 tbsp raw cacao powder
• 2 tsp vanilla powder
• 2 big pinches of salt

 

(For the filling)

• 3 tbsp smooth almond butter
• ½ tsp vanilla powder
• 2 pinches of salt

 

• 1. Start by placing the cacao butter in a bowl above a pan of boiling water, over a low heat. Once the butter has melted, remove from the heat and stir in all the chocolate ingredients until the mix starts to thicken.
  2. Spoon the mix into chocolate moulds or small muffin cases until they are half full, then place the moulds in the freezer for about an hour to set.
  3. While they’re freezing, make the filling by warming the almond butter above a pan of boiling water. Once this has softened, stir in the vanilla powder and salt. Make sure you melt these gently on a low heat and keep stirring so the almond butter doesn’t burn.
  4. Take the moulds out of the freezer and scoop the almond butter filling into the centre of each one before covering them with another spoonful of chocolate (reheat to soften it if you need to).
  5. When the moulds have been filled, place them back in the freezer for an hour to set. Turn out to serve.

 

Raw Witches Fingers

These are nutty, chocolaty and frighteningly fabulous – they’re the tastiest fingers you’ll ever eat!

Makes about 20 small fingers

Ingredients

• 150g raw walnuts
• 150g cashew nuts (raw or roasted work great)
• 100g dates
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 50g flaked almonds

 

• 1. Blend the walnuts and cashew nuts in a food processor till they reach a flour-like consistency.
  2. Add the dates, vanilla and coconut oil and blend until everything is smooth and evenly mixed.
  3. Remove the mixture from the food processor and roll into finger shapes. Place the flaked almonds at the end of each finger (as the nails) and enjoy!