Fright-day Foods: Bat's Blood Wine

Bats Blood Wine

About Bats Blood:

"Bats Blood is produced in Banat which is part of the historic region of Transylvania by one of Romanias finest wineries : Cremela Recas. 

Legend has it that the Banat region of Romania was where Bacchus, the god of wine, spent his childhood – certainly the first records of viticulture date back to the Roman Empire when it invaded and annexed the central part of Dacia in 106 AD. 

This region west of Romania, surrounding the city of Timisoara, is the home of our multi award winning producers Cremela Recaş. The vineyard areas and wine region have both benefited from centuries of influence from Hungarian, Bavarian and Austrian immigrants – all laying claim to have influenced the present day viticulture. 

Recaş is now a 700ha modern day winery, exporting to major wine buyers throughout Europe and the Americas. It has a Mediterranean climate, cooler than the rest of Romania, and dryer with a longer harvest season, allowing many varieties to ripen easily." 

Being a sucker (pun intended) for items like this, I decided to buy a bottle of Bats Blood last year. I'd love to tell you that it has a wonderful flavour and has a delightful aroma, but actually I don't drink (...wine!). It does, however, look pretty on my shelf and the coffin box it comes in is quite lovely.

For more information, or to order a bottle for yourself, visit the sites below:

• Bats Blood Website
• Bats Blood on Facebook
• Bats Blood on Tumblr

This post is part of Fright-day Foods!

Fright-Day Foods: Purple Glitter Skull Cake

Last month, for a friend's birthday, I decided to take the opportunity to use a new skull-shaped pan I had and make him a spooky cake! Since I know some of you like to bake, I thought I'd share the incredibly simple decoration details with you here. It's just a vanilla sponge cake (I made other bits of the cake too, but they weren't horror-esque), so I haven't included a recipe below, only decoration instructions.

This post is part of Fright-day Foods!

How-to guide after the cut below↓

Friday 13th: Jason & His Gingerbread Victims

As you all know by now, today is Friday 13th, and in addition to being a notoriously unlucky day for the superstitious, it is also Fright-day Foods time here on HSL! Today's Creepy "cooking" is:

Jason Voorhees & His Gingerbread Victims

Ridiculously easy how-to guide after the bloody machete cut below↓

Fright-day Foods: Halloween Cake Bars & A Bug Casket Cake

It could be the jack o' lanterns in the window. It could be the various disgusting decorations on the door. It could be the vile zombie/blood soaked/stitched together hostess that greets them at the door. It could be the eerie music floating over the windy October air. I don't know the reason, but the trick or treaters venture to my house on Halloween each year. So, as I like to be sociable for one out of 365 days, those who bother to dress up receive some sort of sugary placation. Below is a photograph of some of the "treats" I gave out last year. There were also candies on offer, but these cake bars and mini rolls from Cadbury seemed most popular...

The cake bars were also the right size to make a casket for the top of a cake I made last year. There are no how-to guide photos unfortunately, but I can tell you what it's made of. 

The cake is a basic chocolate sponge cake recipe, he casket in the centre is a Cinder Toffee cake bar decorated with icing, the bugs are almonds painted with food colouring and detailed with icing, and the maggots are cashew nuts with icing lines on them. Very simple and fun to make. I did rush it, so it wasn't the neatest thing I've ever produced, but then again, for Halloween, I don't think it has to be!

Fright-day Foods: Spooky Flapjack Fingers

This week, as well as posting a spooky food tutorial for Fright-day Foods, I thought I'd also post some creepy confectionery that I bought/was bought for me last year (no, I don't get Halloween gifts, but when people see Halloween/horror things, they feel the urge to get it for me apparently, heehee). The first item is Spooky Flapjack Fingers from The Fabulous Bakin' Boys. Being quite honest, the "spookiest" thing about these is the packaging, because the actual product is essentially just finger-shaped flapjacks with jam in the middle. I don't know what else I was expecting really...actual bloody fingers.

These were one of the gifts I received last year, so I don't know how much they cost, sorry. I think they were purchased in Sainsbury's though, so perhaps they'll have them again this year. I am glad they at least made the effort to put out a Halloween product, complete with spooky rhyme, though. Whilst those of you in the US might be used to seeing a mass of Halloween fare in the shops each year, here in the UK there usually isn't much, so anything like this still makes me smile!

Fright-day Foods: Filo Blood Fountains

On the surface, this isn't strictly a horror-inspired dish, but when you pair it with other spooky foods and a scary setting, it really works well. It's especially easy if you make the Blood Shakes we featured previously too, as it has the same strawberry sanguine sauce. You can find the sauce guide here: Blood Shakes in Syringes. Alternatively, you can just make the simple strawberry only version from the following guide.

Recipe and how-to guide after the cut below↓

Fright-day Foods: White Chocolate & Strawberry Ghosts

This week's frightening foods come from the great beyond and onto your plate. White Chocolate & Strawberry Ghosts! They are super easy to make, really tasty and they look gorgeous too.

Ingredients:
Strawberries
White Chocolate
Silver Spoon Black Designer Icing

You will also need cocktail sticks.

Method:

1. Fill a bowl with hot water. Take another bowl of a similar size and put the white chocolate, broken into squares, in it. Place the second bowl on top of the first, so that the heat from the water can melt the chocolate. Make sure none of the water spills over into the melting cubes.

2. Whilst the chocolate is melting, you can prepare the strawberries. First, chop off the tops.

3. Turn the strawberries upside down and skewer them with the cocktail sticks. This gives you the base for your ghosts.

 4. Cover a tray or plate with grease-proof paper and place the upside down, skewered strawberries on it.

5. Spoon the white chocolate over the strawberries, making sure you use enough to cover them. The chocolate will naturally drip into the ghost shapes. Put in the fridge to set.

6. When the chocolate is fully set, pipe the icing onto the ghosts to make the faces, and you're done!

Fright-day Foods: Witches Brooms

Today's Fright-day Food is really quick and simple to make, because you don't actually have to cook or prepare anything! For Witches Brooms, you will need:

• Twiglets or straight pretzels (for the broom part)
• Pocky/Mikado or bread sticks (for the broomsticks)
• String or florist's ribbon (to hold it together)

I used Twiglets and Mikado because that's what I found in the store, but Pocky and pretzels would work wonderfully well too.

1. Take approximately 5-6 Twiglets/pretzels and put them in a bundle. 

2. Cut a length of florist ribbon/string and place the bottom of the Twiglets in the middle of it.

3. Wrap the ribbon around the Twiglets and make a single knot to hold them in place. Then, holding each end of the ribbon, continue to wrap it around, making a single knot each time. 

4. When you have about an inch of both ends remaining, tie a double knot.

5. Arrange the Twiglets so that they fan out at the top slightly. This will create a small hole at the bottom.

6. Gently put the Mikado/Pocky into the hole. Make sure you do this quite slowly, as it can easily break otherwise. The Twiglets will then hold it in place.

I had originally tried to make these using sewing thread, but that isn't thick enough and makes the whole process much more fiddly than it needs to be. I then changed to florists' ribbon, cut into thin strips and that worked perfectly.

These are really easy and add a spooky touch to a horror or Halloween dinner!

Fright-day Foods: Infected Cupakes

Another post for Fright-day Foods!

Many horror-themed cakes are made in the creepy cute style, largely because it looks much more appealing to eat than say, green slime and guts. However, if you want to have horror-themed eats that truly reflect the nature of the subject matter, then try these thoroughly disgusting looking (but delicious tasting) 'Infected Cupcakes'! The green cake represents the infected flesh, whilst the red fruit and white cream denote the oozing blood and pus respectively. Mmm...yummy! :D

To make these cupcakes: 

• I used an amalgamation of a meringue (ignore the clotted cream, just make the meringue) and a cupcake recipe, and added a dash of green food colouring to the mix (you don't need much). I also added some cream of tartar to make the mixture thicker, but it isn't really necessary. Cook them as you would cook the cupcakes, as they are more like cakes than meringues. The meringue part gave it a fruity tang, whilst the cupcake part gave a cake-like texture. 

• For the filling, I whisked up some low-fat double cream and put some icing sugar into the a portion of the 'Blood Shake' mixture and put it in the fridge overnight. This then gave it the consistency of a thin jam/thick sauce. I then took off the cupcake lids (muffin tops) and placed them upside down. Then the cream and 'Blood Shake' sauce went on, followed by the bottom of the cupcakes.

Fright-day Foods: Blood Shakes in Syringes

The inspiration for this came from a recipe for 'Dracula's Blood Shakes' from Tesco, which was sent to me by Kei from Unfortunately Oh!. It's really simple and quick to make and can contain almost any kind of fruit and non-carbonated drink you like. They're perfect for a little extra ambiance on any spooky table!

This post is for today's Fright-day Foods...

Ingredients and how-to guide after the cut below↓:

Fright-day Foods!

We've had Monster Monday, and now devils & dolls, we bring you Fright-day Foods! In addition to using horrifically bad puns, we're also going to feature deliciously disturbing delicacies (or just some horror-themed culinary goodies) every Friday.

Previous Fright-day Foods

As with Monster Monday, we'd also love to see submissions from everyone else as well, so if you want to take part in Fright-day Foods, let us know and we'll link to your post too or feature your contribution on HSL! Posts can be about any kind of horror-themed food and drink. All we ask is that submissions are in by the preceding Thursday so that we have time to compile the list. To submit a link or ask a question, please post a comment on this entry, or e-mail us at: 1x15x5@gmail.com

If you want to be kind and link back to Fright-day Foods, please use the banner below: