Halloween Ideas: Eat, Bake, Decorate

Halloween is coming and as we are going through darkest time of the year it is nice to make and prepare something festive. I think that best inspiration comes from the nature which is waiting for it´s snow cover. I wanted to keep decorations very simple by using nature materials and light tones. For the food I combined cold salmon salad with warm pumpkin slices, which makes it both light and filling. When I made the cake I wanted to combine all things that taste like autumn and coming winter. 

Eat: Salmon Salad with Warm Pumpkin Slices

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salmon

vegetarian oil

salt

fish seasoning

Massage oil, salt and fish seasoning to the surface and cook in a preheated oven in 175 Celsius degrees for 15-25 minutes depending how big fillet you have.

pumpkin

vegetarian oil

salt

black pepper

lemon juice

Slice the pumpkin (don´t remove the peel, it looks decorative when you serve it). Massage oil and salt to the surface. Cook in a preheated oven in 200 Celsius degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve with black pepper and lemon juice.

spinach

curly endive

lettuce

cherry tomatoes

1 carrot

Parmesan cheese

Slice tomatoes and grate carrot. Mix all ingredients together and grate Parmesan cheese to the top. Serve with cold salmon and lemon juice.

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Bake: Pumpkin Cake with Mascarpone, Lemon and Figs 

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Use a hand blender to mince fresh pumpkin that you have carved from the inside of the pumpkin.

Wash one lemon and one lime properly. Grate off the peel from both. Add 2 tbsp water and 1 tbsp sugar plus grated peel to a kettle and let cook for two minutes. Put the peel to dry on a baking sheet. Use as decoration and spice for the cake filling.

Cake

2 eggs

1 1/2 dl sugar

75 g butter

2 tsp gingerbread seasoning

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 dl flour

3 dl fresh pumpkin puree

Mix together dry ingredients. Beat together eggs and sugar. Add melted butter and mix. Add dry ingredients and mix. Add puree and mix. Put the pastry to a well floured baking mold. Bake in a preheated 175 Celsius degrees oven for 30-45 minutes.

Cut the cake to two halves and slice both halves.

Filling

2 dl cream

250 g mascarpone cheese

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp lemon juice

lemon peel in sugar

fig lam

figs

Whisk the cream and add mascarpone, mix properly. Add the other ingredients and mix.

When you fill the cake put first a layer of fig jam and then mascarpone cream. Cover the cake with mascarpone cream, lemon peel and figs.

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Decorate: Pumpkins with Patina and Golden Dry Flowers

I have seen beautiful chalk painted pumpkins in blogs and as I had leftover paint I decided to try. To add something extra and get more ceramic look I also used antiquing wax that worked well. Do like this: Paint pumpkins with chalk paint and let dry. Use a soft cotton cloth to rub antiquing wax to the surface. Be gentle not to rub off the chalk paint. Let dry.

Collect some dry flowers that you can find outside this time of the year. Spray paint with gold. Put glue to one plate and glitter to the other. Dip gently the flower to glue and then to the glitter. Let dry.

I really like this simple decoration, pumpkins look almost like ceramic and dry flowers glitter beautifully. This combination makes kitschy skull lanterns look stylish :)

This week I have been learning new things. I am on Instagram now! It is so nice to connect with all the creative people in the world :) You can get to my Instagram page here! I am sharing pictures from my projects, food inspiration and walks to the nature. Yesterday I made a garbage find, check out what it was :)

Sannu