I'm not really one for fancy dress but I love a good horror, so I like to spend to my Halloween tucked up on the sofa in a blanket with a good movie; no tricks, just treats.  Speaking of a good horror, I've just finished watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix.  I had really high hopes for it after reading what a scarefest it was, how it would have me jumping out of my skin and would be unable to sleep at night.  As much as I enjoyed the series I don't think it was half as scary as it was made out to be, in fact I only jumped once during the entire series and that wasn't even at a ghost, ha ha!

Anyway I'm getting a bit sidetracked here, as I'm not one for fancy dress I thought I'd get into the spooky spirit with some Halloween themed nails.  As a huge Disney fan I decided to go with some Nightmare Before Christmas inspired nails and thought I'd share with you all how I created these Jack Skellington nails.

You will need:

Black nail polish

White nail polish

Top Coat nail polish

A large dotting tool

A small nail art brush

Start off by painting the ring finger nail on each hand white and the rest of the nails black.

Once the white nails are dry, use the large dotting tool with the black nail polish to create the eyes.  Dot the nail polish onto your nail dragging it down slightly to create a more oval shaped eye.

Then using the small brush dipped in the black nail polish draw two small lines between the eyes to create the nose, then draw a curved line along the nail and carefully cross it with small lines to create his stitched mouth.

By this time your black nails should be dry, you can then clean the small brush and then dip it in the white polish to create vertical stripes on each of the black nails.

Then paint your nails with a top coat and you are finished!

I love creating themed nails, they are such a fun way to get into the festive spirit without going to too much trouble.

What are you doing to celebrate Halloween?

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Having never tried pumpkin before, I decided that this Halloween I was going to bake something that incorporates pumpkin into the recipe.  I wanted to do something more fun than a traditional pumpkin pie so I thought I'd give a pumpkin spiced cake a go and turn it into this pumpkin shaped piñata cake, filled with a super yummy honey and cinnamon buttercream and stuffed with sweets in the middle.  Pumpkin isn't really very big here in England so I apologise that the cake recipe will be in cups whilst the rest of the recipe will be in grams, but if you don't have any measuring cups there are several conversion charts online and vice versa if you only use measuring cups.

You Will Need:

1 or 2 bundt tins

Orange Fondant (approx 750g)

Green Fondant

Black Fondant

Sweets

For The Cake:

2 cups Unsalted Butter

2 1/2 cups Caster Sugar

5 cups Plain Flour

4 tsp Baking Powder

2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

4 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Ginger

1/2 tsp Ground Cloves

1 tsp Salt

2 cans Pumpkin Puree

1 1/2 cups Buttermilk

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

6 Eggs

For The Buttercream:

250g Unsalted Butter

480g Icing Sugar

4 tbsp Milk

1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

2-3 tbsp Honey

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/170°C and grease your bundt tins and lightly coat with a dusting of plain flour.

2. Using a freestanding mixer beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt.

4. In another large bowl mix together the pumpkin puree, buttermilk and vanilla essence.

5. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture and beat for a minute until fully combined.

6. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add a quarter of the flour mixture until combined, followed by a third of the pumpkin mixture and so on alternating until it is all combined.  You should be left with a fairly thick batter, be sure not to overheat.

7.  Split the mixture between your two bundt tins (if you only have one in fill it with half the mixure and leave the rest to stand in the bowl, giving it a good stir before you fill the tin for the second layer) and bake in the oven for 55 mins-1 hour until a skewer comes out clean.

8. Whilst the cakes are cooling make the buttercream, start by whisking the butter for a few minutes until pale and creamy.

9. Add half the icing mixture and whisk until fully combined.

10.  Add the milk and whisk, followed by the rest of the icing sugar, mix well until you have a light and creamy buttercream.

11. Add the cinnamon and mix, then add the honey according to how sweet you'd like your buttercream to be.

12. Once the cakes are fully cooled, place the bottom layer on your cake stand or board and spread the top with a generous amount of buttercream.  Place the second layer on top and cover with the rest of the buttercream.

13. Fill the hole in the centre with sweets of your choice, I opted for some halloween themed sweets.

14. Once the buttercream has set slightly cover the cake with the orange fondant.

15. Roll some green fondant into a ball until smooth and shape into a stem, brush the bottom with a little water and place on top. 

16. Roll out some black fondant and cut out the shapes for your pumpkin face, leave to dry slightly, then brush with a little water and place them on the front of the pumpkin.

I'd love to see if you give this cake a try or what your favourite Halloween treats are, so be sure to tag me on Instagram here or Twitter here.

I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, I don't really like fancy dress and I am a huge wimp so the last thing I want is to be surrounded by people in scary costumes trying to scare me.  I do however like to take the opportunity to whip up a few treats and this year for Halloween I decided to give cake pops a try.

What you will need:

Makes approx. 20 cake pops.

A cake pop mould

Lollipop sticks

110g unsalted butter

110g caster sugar

110g plain flour

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

To decorate:

A large bar of white chocolate

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Orange gel food colouring

Black fondant

White fondant

Green fondant

Edible glue

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºc and grease your cake pop mould well with butter.  You can get a cake pop mould pretty much anywhere online but I got mine for about £3 from Aldi and it came with 20 lollipop sticks too.

2. Mix together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a large bowl using an electric whisk or stand mixer.  Then fill the bottom half of the cake pop mould with the cake mixture and cover with the top half of the mould.  As it is a silicone mould I also like to stand it on a baking tray before putting it in the oven so the mould stands straight on the oven shelf.  Bake for 15-18 minutes.

3. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly.  I like to remove the cake balls whilst they are still slightly warm as I find they pop out of the mould a little easier without crumbling, although if the mould has been greased well you should have no problem anyway. Then leave them too cool completely on a cooling rack.

4.  Once they are fully cooled, melt a small amount of the chocolate in a bowl, then dip the end of the lollipop stick into the chocolate before inserting it into the cake ball and pop into the fridge for 10 minutes.  This will hold the stick in place and make the cake pops easier to decorate.

To make the ghost cake pops:

Melt half the white chocolate in a bowl.  I like to add a teaspoon of vegetable oil, as it thins the chocolate slightly making it easier to dip.  Dip the cake ball into the chocolate until it is completely covered.  You can buy cake pop stands to stand the cake pops in but they can be a little pricey so I just stand mine in a block of polystyrene and leave to set.

Cut out a large circle of white fondant, making sure it is big enough to cover the cake ball and drape down.  Then just gently lay the circle of fondant over the top of the cake pop and gently cover the top with your hand to mould it to the cake pop and it will naturally drape around the bottom which you can shape as you like.  Then roll two small balls of black fondant for the eyes and a larger oval for the mouth.  Then stick on with some edible glue or if you don't have any wetting it slightly should help it to stick.

To make the pumpkin cake pops:

Melt the rest the other half of the chocolate in a bowl and add a little bit of orange food colouring.  This is where is gets a little tricky, I used Dr Oetker's gel food colouring and as soon as I mixed it in the chocolate started to thicken and set again.  So you need to use it sparingly and mix it in as quickly as you can, again adding a teaspoon of vegetable oil to thin it slightly.  Then dip the cake balls as quickly and evenly as you possibly can.  If you can find some orange candy melts then these will be a lot easier to work with.  Then stand in polystyrene to set.

Once the orange cake pops set cut a long thin strip of black fondant which I then cut diagonally to make small triangles so they would all be equal in size.  Use two the right way up for the eyes and one upside down for the nose and again stick to the cake pop using edible glue or water.  For the mouth cut out a crescent moon shape and cut out two tiny squares, one in the top and one in the bottom and stick to the cake pop.  Then roll a small piece of green fondant and stick to the centre of the top of the cake pop to create the stem of the pumpkin.

What treats have you been cooking up this Halloween?  Let me know if you give these a try I'd love to see, you can find me on twitter and instagram.

Now I have to admit, being the absolute wimp that I am, that I am not the biggest fan of Halloween.  When it comes to fancy dress I am a little "bah humbug" so dressing up is out of the question and the last thing I want to do is spend half the night cowering in a corner because I'm too scared to actually look at anyone in their horrific masks.  So I decided that this year I would get into the Halloween spirit with a spot of nail art.  I decided to go for a simple pumpkin and cobweb design and here's a little tutorial in case any of you fancy giving it a go yourselves.

All you need is:

An orange nail polish

A black nail polish

A toothpick

A topcoat

Apply a base coat of orange nail polish, I used 17's Lasting Fix nail polish in Orange Soda, and leave to dry.

Now if you have a black nail art pen this will be a lot simpler but as I don't I dotted some of the black nail polish onto a piece of paper and used a toothpick to draw on my design.

Draw on two small triangles for the eyes, a small inverted triangle for the nose and a crescent moon smile.

Whilst your pumpkin face is drying draw 5 straight black lines spreading from the corner of each of your other fingernails.

Then join each of these lines together with a small slightly curved line to finish off the cobwebs.

By now your pumpkin face should be dry, so taking another toothpick dip it into the orange polish and use it to dot on some jagged teeth in the pumpkin's mouth.  The finish by applying a layer of your top coat.

How are you getting into the Halloween spirit this year?  Let me know if you've tried any spooky nail art or make up this year, I would love to see it.