When I was about 7 or 8 years old, trick or treating was terrific. We got wonderful homemade treats and special things like bottles of pop. I remember getting fudge and popcorn balls, candy apples and taffy apples, and the local candy store let us pick out a candy from their display case. That was the 1950’s!
One year our neighbor had a Halloween party where we bobbed for apples! It was very exciting.
What treats do you remember from your childhood?
Here are some to make for your children and grandchildren. Of course we can’t pass out things that are made at home to the little beggars at the door. Too bad!
Peanut Butter Spider Cookies
Yield: 4 dozen cookies
½ cup shortening
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup white sugar for rolling
24 chocolate candy spheres with smooth chocolate filling (such as Lindt Lindor Truffles), refrigerated until cold
48 decorative candy eyeballs
½ cup prepared chocolate frosting
NOTE: Instead of Lindor Truffles, try using the small peanut butter cup candies.
Step 1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with baking parchment.
Step 2 Beat shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, and 1/2 cup white sugar together with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Beat egg into the creamy mixture until fully incorporated. Stir milk and vanilla extract into the mixture until smooth.
Step 3 Mix flour, baking soda, and salt together in a small bowl; add to the wet mixture in the large bowl and stir until completely incorporated into a dough. Divide and shape dough into 48 balls.
Step 4 Spread 1/4 cup white sugar into a wide, shallow bowl. Roll dough balls in sugar to coat and arrange about 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets.
Step 5 Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and quickly press a dimple into the middle of each cookie using the blunt end of a wooden spoon. Cool cookies on sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Step 6 Cut each chocolate sphere into two hemispheres. Put one piece atop each cookie with the rounded side facing upwards.
Step 7 Spoon frosting into a pastry bag with a small round tip or a plastic freezer bag with one end snipped off. Dab a small amount of frosting onto the back of each candy eyeball and stick two onto each chocolate candy to resemble eyes. Then pipe frosting in four thin lines, starting at the base of the candy, on each side atop the cookie to resemble spider legs.
Step 8 Let frosting harden at room temperature, about 30 minutes. Store cookies in an airtight container.
Popcorn Balls
Yield: 20 Popcorn Balls
¾ cup light corn syrup
¼ cup margarine
2 teaspoons cold water
2 ⅝ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup marshmallows
5 quarts plain popped popcorn
Step 1 In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the corn syrup, margarine, cold water, confectioners’ sugar and marshmallows. Heat and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Carefully combine the hot mixture with the popcorn, coating each kernel.
Step 2 Grease hands with vegetable shortening and quickly shape the coated popcorn into balls before it cools. Wrap with cellophane or plastic wrap and store at room temperature.
Stella's Place 
I always make these for the kids. Super easy.
https://www.homemadeinterest.com/nutter-butter-boos/
When I was a kid one older lady made popcorn balls, which my dad loved, and he made us go get them first, then we could go out and get our stuff. Another lady always gave out candied apples.
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BTW, it’s always hard to get them past my husband, he takes his cut first. He’s a nutterbutter junkie.
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Love this idea! Can’t possibly allow them in my house though. I would eat every one of them.
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Another old fashioned treat is divinity fudge. My aunt always made that, but for Christmas.
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divinity fudge – YUM!
What a fun & fattening thread Hahaha! 😄
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What I love even more is caramel corn. My Aunt Verna and Uncle Jerry had a truck selling home made caramel corn in their little touristy town of Fife Lake, MI. I guess they were early food truck vendors!
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Another easy favorite of the kids.
https://www.thekitchn.com/halloween-witches-broom-treat-263654
And another. These look really cool and again, not hard to make. My granddaughter loves her Halloween parties and I’ve made treats for several years now. One day when she was four or five years old she told me she was having a Halloween party, had a day and time, and everything, and she had invited her friends over. I told her that her mom hadn’t mentioned it to me.
She said “That’s because I haven’t told her yet.” 😯 And so my Halloween treat skills started that year.
https://lilluna.com/gooey-monster-cookies/
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These are all great idea, Menage!
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Those are really cute treats! I’ll have to check out that website! 🙂
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I worked for over 30 years in a Dental Lab. Every year, I would win “Best Treat” in a contest at work. This was all a build-up to the big holiday of Halloween at the end of the month. This is one of the treats I won 1st prize with one year.
Bloody Band-Aids
Take a box of graham crackers. It has to be the ones that each cracker is scored so you can break a square into 4 “soldiers”. Break them apart into “Band-Aid” sizes. Take a can of white squirty frosting, or make your own. Using your skills, make a small square in the middle of each cracker. Use a tube of red gel frosting onto the white part, and make it look gross.
I also quite often won the Halloween costume contest. I sure do miss my work.
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Neat, but eeeew!
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Have a co worker looking for a great costume. Tell me some ideas.
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I went once wearing a full Saudi Arab prince outfit that My Hubby brought back from the Gulf war. I even wore his best dress shoes and a fake Rolex and a “gold” (plastic) ring shaped by a dollar sign studded with gems. This thing actually had the headdress and all. I used some mascara on my peachfuzz to creat a shadow of a beard and mustache, used an eyebrow pencil to fill in the “beard”. Honestly, nobody at work had a clue who I was. My Boss asked me if I was going out to lunch dressed like that, and I said “Sure”. He told me to be careful I didn’t get shot!
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One of the best I ever did was for an 80″s themed contest. I was a punk rocker for sure. I’m good at crazy make-up, so I made my self a black eye and scraped knee. I also used latex to stick a diaper pin through my eyebrow. Had on a red-plaid short kilt with an “Iron Maiden” t-shirt. I put my hair up with a lot of gluey hair product into a Mohawk and sprayed it red. Finished off the look with my black Dr. Martin’s.
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If they are really lazy and they want something really easy they can do what DH did one year: Carry around a frosted flakes cereal box with a knife jabbed in Tony the Tiger – believe it or not it took people quite a while to figure it out! 😄
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I wanna hang out with you on Halloween! 😄
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I went once wearing a full Saudi Arab prince outfit that My Hubby brought back from the Gulf war. I even wore his best dress shoes and a fake Rolex and a “gold” (plastic) ring shaped by a dollar sign studded with gems. This thing actually had the headdress and all. I used some mascara on my peachfuzz to creat a shadow of a beard and mustache, used an eyebrow pencil to fill in the “beard”. Honestly, nobody at work had a clue who I was. My Boss asked me if I was going out to lunch dressed like that, and I said “Sure”. He told me to be careful I didn’t get shot!
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oops!
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