Halloween Trick or Treats - Part 1

This past Saturday, we went to a Halloween/Oktoberfest beer tasting hosted by our friends Chalie and Michelle. Everyone was asked to bring a ‘sixer’ that related to one of the themes and be prepared to discuss why the beer fit into the categories. There were a couple of pumpkins, one or two devils, a few Oktoberfest, two Coney Island freak shows, a pirate, a chocolate and a hard cider rounded out the mix – in all, 15 beers teased our taste buds. In addition to our sixers, we were asked to bring an appropriate food pairing. This is where we had some fun.

Lots of thoughts went through our heads as we wandered the isles of our local Total Wines looking at specialty brews. Our first thought was pumpkin ravioli with a pumpkin ale beurre blanc. Then we wondered if Morimoto’s hazelnut ale would make a better ‘sauce’ especially if paired with actual toasted hazelnuts. Mmm

Dazed by the sheer volume of great selections, we chose Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and JK Scrumpy’s Hard Cider (although not a beer per se, it was bottled and fermented).

Julie chose the chocolate stout as an homage to ‘trick or treaters’ and paired it with a little treat/trick of her own -

Salt-n-Pepper Brownies

These delightful dark chocolate brownie bites started with Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Brownie mix. We substituted some of Chocolate Stout for water in the mix and added a heaping TABLESPOON of chipotle powder for a little smokey heat.

Inspired by a recent post on MattBites.com,  I was on a mission to make cinnamon-spiced candy apples to pair with my hard cider.

I know i said ‘inspiried’ in the preceding sentence, but obsessed may be a better word. I shopped at a local craft store to get the black enamel bamboo sticks, called more than a dozen grocery and craft stores trying to find black food dye and cinnamon oil. Ultimately finding the necessary ingredients at Palm Beach Cake & Candy Supply.

Armed with both red and green apples, we started by trimming and inserting bamboo sticks in each apple and then began boiling, coloring and flavoring the sugar mixture thereby transforming them into the spooky Halloween treat below.

You can find the complete recipe and a full how-to at MattBites.com and more of our pix from this spooky treat at flickr.

Make sure to come back next week for Cassie’s de-fright-ful Halloween cookie recipe.