Halloween food for kids – mummy sausages, ghost bananas and witches' brew

Halloween food for kids does not have to be complicated. Most of it is ordinary food given a spooky look: a sausage becomes a mummy, a banana becomes a ghost and a mandarin becomes a little pumpkin. Children usually think the best part is making the food themselves – and they happily eat what they have made.

Here are ideas for everything from the after-school snack to dinner on Halloween night and the treats at a Halloween party. Several of them can be cooked over an open fire, if you celebrate outdoors with a fire in the garden or at a barbecue spot. What the rest of the evening can look like, with going door to door for sweets, reflectors and jack-o'-lanterns, is covered in Halloween with kids.

Mummy sausages – on a stick over the fire

Mummy sausages are Halloween's most popular kids' food, and they are perfect to make over the fire. Use the same dough as for stick bread – or ready-made pizza dough if you are in a hurry.

1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut it into strips about half a centimetre wide.
2. Thread a hot dog sausage onto a stick, or put it on a baking tray if you are making them in the oven.
3. Wrap the strips of dough around the sausage, slightly at an angle and overlapping, so that it looks like bandages. Leave a gap near one end for the face.
4. Bake a little above the embers and keep turning, until the dough is golden and cooked through – about 8–10 minutes. In the oven: 200 degrees for 15–20 minutes.
5. Dot two eyes in the gap with mustard or ketchup.

The tricky part over the fire is getting the dough cooked before it burns. Hold the stick a little above the embers, not in the flames. More tips for baking on a stick can be found in food on a stick.

Ghost bananas and mandarin pumpkins

These are the quickest Halloween dishes, and a good counterweight to the sweets.

• Ghost bananas: peel the bananas, cut them in half and stand them on the cut end. Press in three chocolate buttons or raisins – two eyes and a mouth. Done.
• Mandarin pumpkins: peel the mandarins whole and push a small piece of celery or cucumber into the top as a stalk. If you want to keep the peel on, you can draw a pumpkin face on it with a felt-tip pen instead – then of course they need peeling before they are eaten.

Put the ghost bananas and mandarin pumpkins together on a plate, and you have a fruit bowl the children will actually eat from.

Spider pizza

Make an ordinary pizza, or small pizzas on tortilla bread. Cut black olives in half: one half becomes the spider's body, and the other half is cut into thin strips that become the legs. Put the spiders on the cheese before the pizza is baked. Over the fire you can bake the pizza in a cast-iron pan with a lid – just like in our recipe for pizza over an open fire.

Cobweb soup

A smooth soup is perfect for drawing on. Make a pumpkin soup in the pot over the fire or at home, and serve it in bowls. Then drip crème fraîche in two or three rings on the surface and drag a toothpick from the middle outwards in several directions – the rings become a cobweb. Children from six can usually manage the web themselves after seeing an adult do it once.

Witch fingers

Witch fingers are biscuits that look like long, knobbly fingers. Use an ordinary shortcrust or biscuit dough that can be shaped.

1. Roll the dough into short, thin sausages, about as long as a child's finger.
2. Pinch in two knuckles and mark “wrinkles” with a knife.
3. Press a sweet almond or a piece of red jelly sweet into one end as a nail.
4. Bake according to the dough recipe, about 10–12 minutes at 175 degrees.

If someone has a nut allergy: swap the almond for a piece of dried fruit or a dab of red jam.

Meringue ghosts

Pipe whipped meringue into small peaks on a tray and draw eyes and a mouth with melted chocolate once they have cooled. The base is the same as in our marängsviss (Swedish meringue dessert) – meringue is just egg white and sugar baked for a long time at a low temperature, about 1–1.5 hours at 100 degrees. The meringue ghosts keep for several days in an airtight jar, so they are easy to make in advance.

Witches' brew to drink

Witches' brew is squash, a smoothie or a soft drink that looks spooky.

• Green witches' brew: blend spinach, banana, apple and a little orange juice – it turns bright green but tastes of fruit.
• Blood-red brew: mix red squash or a raspberry smoothie and serve with “eyes” – peeled grapes or lychees with a blueberry in the middle.
• Spooky ice: freeze water in a glove, cut away the glove and put the frozen hand in the punch bowl.

Leave dry ice out of children's drinks. It gives an impressive smoke, but dry ice is so cold that it can cause frostbite in the mouth or on the skin if a piece ends up in the glass.

Sweet things by the fire

If you are celebrating Halloween outside by the fire, the classic desserts are easy to make a little spookier. Draw faces with melted chocolate on marshmallows before grilling s'mores, serve a chocolate fondue over an open fire with ghost bananas to dip, or let the children make banana in foil with chocolate – a banana with the skin on already looks a bit like a mummy.

Think about allergies and small children

At a Halloween party with lots of children, it is worth thinking ahead:

• Ask about allergies when you send the invitations, and label anything containing nuts, egg or milk.
• Cut grapes and cherry tomatoes lengthways for children under four – whole ones can get stuck in the throat.
• No whole nuts for children under three, and no hard sweet eyes or small hard sweets for the youngest.
• Let the children sit down when they eat. Running around in a costume with a sausage in your mouth is not a good combination.

With food on the table, ghost lanterns in the window and a carved pumpkin by the door, Halloween night is ready.