Halloween Party Food

Here's a hauntingly tasty idea for Halloween dinner. First, top a premade pizza crust with pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella. To make the spider, cut a pitted black olive in half lengthwise. From another olive, cut 8 thin slices for the legs. Set the spider pieces in place (tweezers make this easy). Bake the pizza according to the instructions on the crust's package. Meanwhile, cut a ball of fresh mozzarella into 1⁄4-inch-thick slices. With a paring knife, trim away bits of cheese to form head and arm shapes. With 3 minutes of cooking time left, set the ghosts on the pizza, then finish cooking. Remove the pizza from the oven and add bits of olives for eyes. Serve warm. 

This cheery cake doubles as a festive table centerpiece. Older kids will have fun helping you decorate it: Simply arrange M&M's like a jack-o'-lantern and press onto a frosted cake. Use orange-tinted icing as glue.

The sophisticated flavor of these cookies—pumpkin spice—appeals to grown-ups, while the spiderweb icing wins over the younger crowd.

Skip the chips. Instead, upgrade store-bought Chex mix with candy corn plus festive M&M's for a painless Halloween snack.

Piled on a plate, these sinister, finger-shaped breadsticks are sure to illicit a shudder or two. After a bite, though, guests will be grabbing the cinnamon-sugar digits by the fistfuls.

This sweet and savory snack is a snap to prepare and a guaranteed hit at your next get-together. Simply dump a few varieties of store-bought snacks—from shredded wheat cereal to dried banana chips—into the biggest bowl you own, gently toss ingredients, and watch it quickly drain.

No need for any magic spells or witchcraft to turn predictable cupcakes into darling witch heads. Strip the liners off baked cupcakes, turn them on their sides, frost with green icing, and stick a chocolate ice cream cone on top as a hair-raising hat. Draw faces and hair with icing and candy.

Who said cookie decorating was reserved only for Yuletide cheer? Trot out a few ghoulish cookie cutters and whip up a batch of vanilla (or chocolate!) roll-out cookies.

Spice up your spread a notch by icing pumpkin muffins instead of cupcakes. Spin a chocolate cobweb pattern on muffin tops coated with cream cheese frosting.

These easy homemade lollipops make swell party decorations as well as sweet treats. Spread a dollop of melted chocolate onto one side of vanilla wafers, attach sticks, and refrigerate. Once the candy-on-a-stick is set, dunk cookies into melted orange and purple sprinkles.

Combine cream cheese, milk, brown sugar, and pumpkin-pie spice for a creamy dip that makes an excellent autumn-flavor accompaniment to fruit and vegetable slices.

Top mini pizza crusts with a perfect-for-fall pumpkin and applesauce concoction spiked with curry powder; then load apple slices like wheel spokes and bake.

For the ultimate comfort food, whip up a batch of these homemade turnovers. Stuffed with apples, raisins, and walnuts, the flaky snack is laced with fall flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. Flash-freeze a pan ahead of time and pop it in the oven once guests start arriving.

Kids will love how their lips get stained black after sipping this electric green punch from glasses rimmed with black sugar crystals. For the goblin gulp, pour a mix of apple juice and seltzer on top of scoops of Jell-O.