Things that Go "Yum" in the Night: Eat a Haunted House for Dessert

A perfect idea for your frightfest.
A perfect idea for your frightfest.

I love gingerbread and cookie houses! Years ago, when I worked as an event coordinator at a craft store, one of my main duties was to make all of the crafty samples that were displayed throughout the store. One of those samples was a ready-to-assemble gingerbread house. This was way before I had kids, so when I finished the house and put it on display, I didn't think about whether or not it would be within reach of passing little ones, and how attractive it would be to them. Sure enough, the next day I checked in on my gingerbread house and all of the candies had been plucked off and a big old bite mark was taken out of the roof! After that, I always made sure to place edible displays under glass. I hope you'll enjoy this haunted cookie house as much as that kid enjoyed my gingerbread house display. It's fun and relatively easy to make since it doesn't require any baking. It uses packaged graham crackers, sugar cones and ready-to-spread frosting to "glue" on the candy details.

Haunted Cookie House

Ingredients
1 box of graham crackers
1 can ready-to-spread chocolate frosting
1 can ready-to-spread white frosting
Orange food coloring
2 sugar cones (green or chocolate, if available)
Candies for decorating: candy corn, candy coated chocolates, gummy sours, cream-filled cookies

Related: 13 creepy Halloween cupcakes you're doomed to enjoy

Directions

1. Before making the house, you will want to make a few preparations. To make a base, wrap a piece of cardboard with parchment paper, taping the paper to the underside of the cardboard. This will make it easier to move the house when it is finished. Fill plastic food bag with chocolate frosting and snip off the tip of one corner to make a piping bag. Fill and prepare a second bag the same way with white frosting. Mix white frosting and orange food color in a bowl to make orange frosting and then fill a third bag with the orange frosting.

2. Make a rectangular box using vertical graham crackers that is 3 crackers wide and 1 cracker deep. Pipe chocolate frosting onto the edges of the crackers to "glue" them together. Be generous with the frosting, and make sure there are no gaps.

3. To add the roof, pipe chocolate frosting along the top edge of the graham cracker box. Place one and a half graham crackers flat onto the top of the structure.

4. Use two half (square) graham crackers to make a triangular roof over the center of the house. Add inverted sugar cones to the outer sides. Again, pipe on chocolate frosting to "glue" everything together. Pipe chocolate frosting all along the base and add extra frosting at the seams. The basic structure of the house is complete and you can begin decorating!

5. Generously frost the backs of graham cracker windows, doors and other decorations and carefully stick them to the house. I used 1/4 graham crackers for two windows and a door.

6. Use the orange and white frosting to add decorative details. Use smaller broken graham crackers to make graves. Write "RIP" and "BOO" on some of the crackers before sticking them to the ground in front of the house, then make fresh grave dirt with chocolate frosting. Make a ghost on a chocolate cream-filled cookie and then attach it to the roof. Use other candies for details.

7. Add your own variations by using what you have available!

- By Marigold Haske

For 25 more Halloween desserts to raise your spirits, visit Spoonful!

Spoonful | Make. Everyday.
Spoonful | Make. Everyday.

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