‘Tis the season... again

I’ll bet my lunch that you have already seen those shop-fronts decorated in orangey strips, the vampire Frappucino adverts outside Starbucks, your friends marking ‘Interested’ on Halloween-themed Facebook events, and those tacky, plasticky, not-even-scary masks lining the aisles of Tesco. Well okay, this is typical, nothing wrong here.

Except for one single tiny detail: do we actually know what all this fuss is about? Felix wanted to do a Halloween issue – that’s great! But after we actually did some research, we realised that a lot of Halloween celebrations around the world are, in one way or another, just a try-hard attempt to follow the North American trend of trick-or-treating and scary costumes. Most of the time we don’t know the reasons behind customs, but hey, everyone is doing it so why not?

So, enough of my ranting. Here are some ‘Halloween’ recipes, so we don’t look too out of place. Maybe this will comfort you after you see one too many Pennywises running wild on the streets on 31st October.

Pumpkin Pie

You will need...

• Pastry – you can normally buy it pre-made in any shop, but you can also make it if you have a lot of time to spare
• Pumpkin – grated or shredded, depending on how pretentious you are
• Sugar
• Cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
2. Unroll the pastry and flatten a little bit. Place in the tin(s) you are using.
3. Divide the pumpkin evenly, depending on how many you are making.
4. Add sugar and cinnamon. I would like to be more precise about the quantities, but it’s really just a matter of taste. For the cinnamon, I just go with ‘the more, the merrier”.
5. Bake for 30-40 mins, until the pastry is golden, and the filling cooked.

Scary... Everything

You will need...

• 150g butter – preferably softened
• 300g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• Food colouring – you probably want orange for pumpkin related decorations and black for spider webs and so on; for white ghosts, you don’t need to add anything!

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft - you can use an electrical mixer for this bit.
2. Add half the icing sugar and keep mixing until it is smooth.
3. Add the rest of the icing sugar one spoon at a time and the spoon of milk.
4. Beat the mixture until it is smooth and soft. If you think that the mixture is not soft enough, you can add more milk but keep in mind that you want it to stay on the sweet side.
5. Add the food colouring.
6. Now you are ready to have fun with your friends! Remember, the one that makes the least scary treat will have to clean the dishes, so don’t fuck it up!