Halloween is the perfect time to unmask your kid’s creativity, and share some spooky treats together. I tested these two ideas with my kids and they were a hit!
Milk Jug-o’-Lanterns
Freaky faces aren’t just for pumpkins anymore. Upcycle your milk jugs so you and your kids can create more lanterns to light the way to the Halloween festivities.
Materials
- Empty milk gallon jugs
- Orange paint (acrylic)
- Black construction paper
- White glue
- Box cutter or scissors
- LED flameless tea lights
- Hot glue gun
- Green felt for leaves or vines
Directions
1. Pour about 1/4 cup of the paint into the milk jug and let your little one shake it with lid on to cover the inside of the jug!
2. Use black construction paper to cut out scary or creepy face shapes. Your kiddo can use a paintbrush to glue the shapes on the jug.
3. Cut leaf shapes or vines from the green felt. Affix with hot glue.
4. Carefully cut out a square opposite the face on the milk jug.
5. Place the flameless LED light inside the Jug-o-Lantern to display at night.
Halloween Sugar Cookies
Give your Halloween sugar cookie recipe a cute twist with cows with candy corn cow bells, or ghosts clasping candy corn. Serve them with a glass of milk and poof! — they’ll be gone.
The trick to the candy corn ghosts is placing tin foil in their hands before baking. Then, once they are cool, give them each their treat! For the cows, once you frost them, the candy corn will stick into the frosting.
Ingredients
- 1 cup – salted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup – vegetable oil
- 1 1/4 cups – granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup – powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoons – lowfat milk
- 2 – eggs, at room temperature
- 5 cups – all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon – baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon – cream of tartar
- 3/4 teaspoon – salt
- 32 pieces of candy corn
- Pair each serving with: 8-ounce glass of real milk
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and very lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, cream together butter, vegetable oil, 1 1/4 cups sugar, powdered sugar, milk, and eggs.
- In a second large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until dough comes together.
- Divide dough into two sections, and wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill for 30 minutes.
- Unwrap one half of the dough, and roll out on a floured surface until it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick. Use a ghost-shaped cookie cutter (or cut-out a ghost shape yourself with a knife). Place the ghosts on the prepared baking sheet, about 2-3 inches apart. We also used a cow cookie cutter.
- Roll some small pieces of tin foil so that they’re roughly the same size as a piece of candy corn, and place one in the center of each ghost. Then, gently bend each ghost’s arms around the tin foil as if it were giving it a hug.
- Bake for 8-11 minutes until cookies look dry but not browned. Allow to cool on baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat process with remaining cookie dough.
- Remove tin foil and replace with candy corn. For the cows, decorate with your choice of black and white frosting. Stick a candy corn on their neck as their bell, and draw a collar on with black frosting.
- Serve with an 8-ounce glass of real milk – classic or chocolate – and enjoy!
Source: Adapted from Milk Life
