Chocolate-Dipped Ladyfingers

Ingredients:
•    1 12-ounce package of ladyfinger cookies, such as Stella D’Oro (any brand will work)
•    1 cup Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Baking Chips
•    ¼ cup orange and black Halloween sprinkles or other colored candy toppings

Directions:
Melt chocolate in double boiler over simmering water until smooth. Dip one of the cookies into the melted chocolate and quickly sprinkle candy toppings over the chocolate. Let chocolate harden on buttered wax paper. Makes 12-15 cookies.
These are really simple to make since the cookies are store-bought. Adding the chocolate and sprinkles give boring cookies a fun, holiday vibe. This is a recipe that you can be creative with. Try using different kinds of toppings or a variety of Halloween shaped cookies to make these deliciously simple cookies even better.

Creepy Eyeball Donut Holes

Ingredients:
•    1 15-ounce package of cake donut holes (any available flavor)
•    1 cup Ghiradelli Classic White Premium Baking Chips (with an additional ¼ cup of regular chocolate chips for pupils)
•    Red decorating gel (in tube)
•    1 package paper candy sticks (found in the candy-making section of craft stores)

Directions:
Melt white chocolate chips in double boiler over simmering water until smooth. Take candy stick and push into a donut hole. Dip the top end of the donut hole into the hot white chocolate and swirl until about half of the donut hole is covered. If the chocolate won’t spread easily, take a knife and spread it until about three-fourths of the donut is covered in white chocolate. Allow the chocolate to harden for a few minutes. Then take one regular chocolate chip and push it into the top of the donut hole to make the eyeball center. With the red gel, make a circle around the chocolate chip and then make zig-zag streaks coming out of the pupil. Let dry by placing sticks in a drinking glass. This recipe usually makes about a dozen donuts, but it depends on how many donuts are in the package.

At a glance, these eyeballs look impressive, but it’s easy to mess them up. Don’t worry about the white chocolate spreading smoothly. White chocolate doesn’t melt as nicely as normal chocolate and is guaranteed to be a little uneven. The red gel will cover up some of the imperfections and will draw the attention from the white background. Although these are a little messy to eat because the donuts don’t stay together well, the white chocolate tastes great with the cake texture of the donuts. Also, the colors contrast well together.

Candy Corn Rice Krispie Treats

Ingredients:
•    6 cups Kellogg’s Rice Krispies cereal
•    3 tablespoons peanut butter or margarine
•    40 regular marshmallows (1 10-ounce package) or 4 cups miniature marshmallows
•    1 can ready-made vanilla icing
•    Red and yellow food coloring
•    Yellow decorating crystals

Directions:
In a large saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat. Or, melt butter and marshmallows in the microwave on high for about three minutes or until completely melted. After the butter and marshmallows have completely melted, add Rice Krispies cereal. Stir until well coated. Using buttered spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Let cool.
After cooling, cut into two-inch triangle pieces to resemble candy corn. Dye half of the white icing orange using a two-to-one red-to-yellow ratio. Spread top with white icing and carefully sprinkle yellow crystals over middle of the treat.  Repeat with remaining Rice Krispies treats. The icing design should resemble candy corn. Makes about two dozen treats.

This is just a spin on traditional Rice Krispies treats, and it’s really easy to make on your own. It takes a lot of dye to get the icing a true Halloween orange color, so it might be easier to find already orange icing or use orange sprinkles instead. Try switching which colors have icing and which have sprinkles for the perfect combination. Another way to make these work for any holiday is to add sprinkles when mixing the cereal and marshmallows together so that each treat in the end is full of holiday spirit.

Bug Juice

Ingredients:
•    1 2-liter bottle of a green soft drink, like
Mountain Dew
•    ½ teaspoon Unsweetened Berry Blue Kool-Aid powdered drink mix
•    gummy worms

Directions:
Pour pop into large punch bowl. Add blue Kool-Aid and stir until dissolved. Liquid will fizz. Serve with spider ice cubes and garnish with gummy worms. Serves 8 to 10.