Easy Halloween Party Snacks

Indulgent Caramel Apples

Wrap your favorite tart or sweet apple in caramel (we even created a less sticky version), then unleash your imagination as you add on nuts, cereal, dried fruit, candy, decorative sprinkles or whatever else inspires you—and your taste buds.

Costume Pretzels

Pretzel rods cloaked in sweet costumes make an irresistible holiday treat. Start with the ingredients below, then let your imagination fly.

Candy coating Look for colored candy disks at crafts stores. They come in a variety of colors and melt for dipping and decorating. Our critters use white, green, orange and black. Apply eyes and mouths with a small brush or toothpick. Dip twice for a contrasting face and body (see Dracula), or drizzle stripes (see Mummy). Make sure the candy sets between colors; chilling speeds the process.

Sprinkles For a fuss-free treat, roll a dipped rod in seasonal sprinkles or decorating sugar. Nonpareils and sprinkles also make good eyes and noses.

Gumdrops Mold a dark gumdrop into a pointed witch's hat.

Fruit leather Snip colorful fruit leather into strips of hair (see Witch) or accessories (see Dracula's bow tie).

Ghoul's Punch

Create an appropriately spooky party centerpiece with our Ghoul's Punch. Eyeball candy on licorice rocks makes a striking, edible party tableau under cider punch. The fog drifting off the drink comes from the dry ice placed in a heavy metal cup set down in the punch. Dry ice is extremely cold; handle it with tongs.

Spider Cheese Ball

Turn a homemade or store-bought cheeseball into a spider with seeds, pretzels and olives.

Divide the cheese ball into a large ball for the body and a small ball for the head. Roll each in chia or black sesame seeds, pressing to adhere.

Create the spider legs from 2 plain pretzel sticks; connect pretzels with "knees" of chia-coated cream cheese balls and angle into the body. For eyes, attach black olive halves with a dab of cream cheese.

Hummus Skull Platter

Make your favorite homemade hummus or buy hummus at the store (an 18-ounce container works well). On a platter, spread hummus into skull shape , about 10 inches long and 8 inches at the cheeks.

For eyes, use 2 beet sliced topped with 2 radish slices and the sliced ends of an olive. Create eyelashes using slices of halved olives. For the nose, use a beet slice cut into a heart shape. Make the mouth from almonds and a piece of chive. Use sliced peppers, cucumbers and carrots to form other features.

Skeleton Cookies

These cookies start with a basic refrigerated chocolate cookie dough, such as this one for Spiced Chocolate Cookies (omit pistachio topping). Cut shapes with gingerbread cookie cutter. When cookies are cool, use a piping bag with a small writing tip to pipe stiff white icing to create skeletons.

Demon Dip

This dip is actually a cheesy fondue we like with both bread and tortilla chips dunked into it.

Halloween Brownies

Chocolate-hazelnut spread and dark chocolate syrup bring big chocolate flavor to these moist bars.

Nutty Owl

Create this cute cupcake in just a few minutes with purchased decorations and frosting. Bake or buy your favorite cupcakes, then use yellow frosting, round and small candies, snipped red fruit leather, black string licorice, candy corn, almond slices and pecan halves to create an owl.

Spooky Bat Cookies

Create these festive cookies by starting with a basic refrigerated chocolate cookie dough, such as this one for Spiced Chocolate Cookies (omit pistachio topping). Cut shapes with a bat cookie cutter. Use purple food coloring to tint vanilla icing or look for purple icing in stores. Top each bat with purple icing, purple sparkling sugar, and edible eyeballs.

Spider Eggs

Top your favorite deviled egg recipe (like this one) with black olives for a Halloween twist. Use pitted black olives for the bodies and sliced olives for the legs.

Fudgy Cats

Brownielike cutout cats add an autumnal touch to your seasonal party buffets. If you want a variety of shapes, try any cookie cutters you have on hand—such as pumpkins, bats or ghosts—and decorate accordingly.

Pretty Pumpkins

Make these pumpkin look-alikes with orange frosting, fine and coarse orange decorating sugar, and pretzel sticks or rods. Mound the frosting on cupcakes, then roll either the entire cupcake or just the edge in sugar, alternating between fine and coarse sugars as you like. To make indentations, press a wooden skewer on top of sugared cupcakes. Add pretzels as stems. For pumpkins in varying sizes, cook your batter in mini, regular and jumbo cupcake pans.