I’ve been living in my new house for over a year now, but for Halloween last year I never really had anything prepared due to a combination of unpacking endless boxes and Covid-19 being a thing.

It’s been a couple of years since I last went trick or treating, but apparently there’s this unwritten rule that you shouldn’t knock on every door or you might disturb people who don’t care for the event. I learnt this after I bought the candy and I didn’t buy any decorations! I ended up hastily cutting out some of my own shapes from paper and sticking them to the door – this seemed to do the trick as I got some spooky visitors today!

It’s fairly easy to create symmetrical shapes like the bats and the pumpkins, I freehand cut these by folding the paper in half and cutting the shape by eye. The ghost shapes were a bit boring though!

One thing that did not make a return this year was the office Halloween-themed baking competition. I never win the top prize but I still love taking part! I also haven’t shown my face for a while publicly due to various reasons, and wanted to bake a sweet thing to share with everyone anyway.

I found this recipe for chocolate cake pops by Sally’s Baking Addiction and I’ve always wanted to try making cake pops. The recipe is super easy to follow and the tip to bake the cake the night before allows for plenty of time to decorate the next day. The chocolate dripping step was probably the hardest step for me to put into practice though. I didn’t quite get the smooth outer chocolate shell.

To make the cake pops vaguely Halloween-themed, I piped some chocolate webs onto each pop. This page on Cake Central gives a general idea on how to achieve the shape, but I piped the shape directly to the pops after they had been in the refrigerator for an hour. I melted 200g of white chocolate chips and used an 8in piping bag with the smallest nozzle to achieve the shape. Actually, I think the messiness adds to the overall cobweb look, but maybe that’s me being hopeful!

I stuck the cake pops into a block of dry foam and covered it with shredded orange tissue paper in a box. Now that’s the Halloween theme!

The word from the office today was, great taste and the perfect size for a sweet midday snack! Next time I make cake pops, I’ll be sure to research more into better decorating methods. Happy Halloween!