A “Desserts Only” Halloween Party For Adults

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A “Desserts Only” Halloween Party For Adults…because when do grown ups just get to eat dessert? Like never. So today, we’re eating dessert. And lots of it!

My sister and I love Halloween. Even now, as adults, it’s still our most favorite time of the year. I think it’s because it kicks off the holiday season and in our homes, the holidays are all about family. So when Halloween comes a knocking, we get just as giddy as the kids do. We start planning our “family costumes,” discussing which neighborhoods are the best ones to trick-or-treat at, debating if we’ll throw a Halloween party for adults, and talking about who we’re hoping to BOO this year.

It also starts the never-ending discussion: Do we throw a party this year?

You see, when my husband and I were living on our own, we used to throw some pretty amazing Halloween parties. We’d invite all of our friends and it was a “must attend” event. Everyone had to come in costume too and participate in our annual Costume Contest. It was a very rowdy event and everyone always had fun. But once we had kids, we got too busy and just stopped hosting it.

So when my sister and I were reminiscing about my Halloween parties the other day, we thought it would be really cool to design a party that was just for the adults. Kid parties are great, but we wanted to see if we could come up with something different. Something that still screamed Halloween Fun but wasn’t tailored to the kids.

The more we thought about it, the more we agreed that adults never get to have any fun (just kidding, but roll with this thought for a minute), so wouldn’t our party be awesome if we only served dessert. Yep, just dessert. Because when do grown-ups just get to eat dessert? Like never. We have to be grown-ups and eat our vegetables so our kids will eat vegetables. But not today. Not here. Not now. We’re eating dessert. And lots of it!

THROW A “DESSERTS ONLY” HALLOWEEN PARTY FOR ADULTS

DECORATING & FOOD IDEAS

A few years ago, my son decided that I wasn’t allowed to have any more “baby” decorations for Halloween. So he made me pack up my fat, little, folk art decorations and turned our house into a creepy, disgusting oddities and curiosities shop. Our younger daughter hated it at first, but somehow the look stuck and now this is what we go with for Halloween.

So for this party, we keep it nice and dark. It helps that my dining room has all black furniture and this is where we set up the food. Nothing makes creepy food POP like an awesome black backdrop. If you don’t have black furniture, you can easily achieve a similar look by picking up a black tablecloth and hanging it from the wall and then decorating with some fake spiders and spiderwebs.

To keep the mood festive, we also like to have some Halloween movies playing on the tv. We turn the volume off so it doesn’t get in the way of conversation, but just seeing some of your favorite characters flashing across the screen really sets the mood! One of our favorite movies of all time is Ghostbusters®! You can play any movie of your choosing, but make sure it screams ghosts, goblins, and lots of other creepy things!

Since we like to chit chat with our guests instead of hiding in the kitchen, we made sure that everything we served was pre-sliced or easy to grab-and-go with one hand. This way our guests could drink and nibble their way through the buffet table without feeling like they had to balance one large plate. Mini snack plates work like a charm in these types of settings! For this shindig, we kept our menu focused on sweet treats like Texas-sized cupcakes, rugelach, cheesecake, brownies and homemade donuts.

HOMEMADE CAKE DONUTS

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp melted butter
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• Can of chocolate frosting
• Fun Size Halloween candy like M&M’S®, SNICKERS® or TWIX®

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 325. Coat the donut pan with cooking spray. Mix together flour, sugar, baking

Step 2: In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter, eggs, milk, vanilla, nutmeg & cinnamon. Mix well.

Step 3: Fill each Donut Hole 2/3 fulls. Bake 8 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Step 4: Using room temperature icing, frost donuts. Decorate with candy of your choosing and arrange on a platter for everyone to drool over.

CRAFTS AND ACTIVITIES

When throwing a party for kids or adults, we find that it’s always a good idea to have something for people to do. This way, if you have people that are a bit introverted, or just need a break from chit-chatting, they can still be a part of the party, but be outside of the heavy gabbing zone.

Since this is a Halloween party, after all, we decided that we would make BOO Kits. If you’re anything like us, you’re still a bit new to the whole BOO thing, so we thought it would be a fun way to get more involved in it.

To be completely honest, we were clueless about it until last year when a package arrived on my doorstep with a card in it that said, “You’ve been BOO’d.”

We’ve been what?

Up until then, we didn’t even know that this was a thing. So after some group Mom text messages, we found out that this was a silly, new way to get your neighbors and friends into the Halloween Spirit. The idea is really quite simple and doesn’t involve much on your part – just a love for ring-and-run shenanigans.

Since we really do love Halloween, we decided that we too, would play along and make some BOO Kits at our party. It’s a really cute way to meet your neighbors and have some fun.

HOW TO BOO SOMEONE

Step 1: Make a BOO Bundle. Don’t stress. Just go to BOOItForward.com and download one of these cute cards. Then, head over to Walmart and grab some party supplies from American Greetings® like bags, cards, stickers, and tissue paper. Stuff your bag with some candy goodies.

Step 2: Secretly Deliver it. This is the fun part! I have no idea when my neighbors dropped it off and I work from home!! They were stealthy like ninjas – the dogs didn’t even bark. 😉

Step 3: If and when you get BOO’d, BOO it Forward. There’s no hard and fast rule to this. If you love recycling, just use the same bag and stuff it up with some candy that you have kicking around.

As much as we love throwing parties for our kids, sometimes, we just want to have some adult time fun. We think that a “Desserts and Drinks” Halloween party is a really fun idea. Now we just have to convince someone to throw one for us. After all, we have kids now and who has the time? 😉

Happy Halloween,

Denine & Daniele

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