Halloween Series...Day 9 Halloween Favors

Kate of Grin and Bake It

Happy Monday dear friends, looks who's here today...
Kate has outdone herself!  Just look at the wonderful Halloween Favors she is teaching us to make today.
I bet you want to start making these right away, I know I do.
I am very excited to have Kate here today, she is really an inspiration to me. Full time worker, single mom of an adorable son and the cutest dog ever and a great friend blogger sharing a deep passion for baking the most delicious desserts, cakes,cookies and cupcakes with all of us. 
Kate's yummy recipes have been featured on Tastespotting Gallery,Foodgawker Gallery,
Duncan Hines Feature Recipe,Cupcakes Take the Cake and Epicute.



I am loving Kathia's Halloween series, and am so excited to be part of the fun. When I'm not working and being a mom, I'm baking or blogging. I love creating sweet treats that can double as gifts ~ teacher gifts, hostess gifts, or fun party favors. Last year I put together s'mores Halloween favors for our annual pumpkin carving party. They were cute and easy to put together. This year, I've come up with an equally cute, definitely more time-consuming, but totally worth it treat! You can spread this project over a few days, and I promise, it will be manageable! You can also recruit the kids to help on this one.

The first step is to make the gingerbread pieces. To do this, create two templates using heavy paper or cardstock. You'll need to cut four pieces of gingerbread for the sides, and one piece for the base. I made the sides three inches by four and a quarter inches, and the base three by three inches. Next time around, I will make it shaped more like a paper bag. These look more like gingerbread boxes. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen too many kids treat-or-treating carrying boxes. What can I say, I tend to be visually-spatially challenged. Make up your favorite gingerbread dough. I love this gingerbread recipe that I made last year. It doesn't need to chill before rolling it out, and the cookies keep their shape, without spreading once baked ~ plus, they taste great. I also used mini Halloween cookie cutters to make cookies to decorate the outside of the gingerbread container.

Once baked and cooled, it's time to decorate. Make up a batch of royal icing and divide into Halloween icing colors. I used Americolor's neon gel colors. They are the perfect shades for Halloween, electric orange, yellow, green, and purple. You can keep this simple by just decorating the front piece, or you can decorate all four sides.

Now comes the fun part... assembly. Here's where you need a little patience. Don't rush this step, or your little containers might fall apart. The assembly is similar to building gingerbread houses. Trim the gingerbread pieces so that they fit together nicely. Then, pipe or spread a thick royal icing on the edges of your gingerbread pieces. You can build two sides at a time, and grab cans from your pantry to support the structure as it dries.
 

Once dry, these are ready to be packaged up. If you don't want to fill the entire container with treats, crumple up small pieces of wax paper to fill in the bottom. Arrange the goodies on top. I included a Starbucks card for my son's teacher. I think a pumpkin latte would be the perfect compliment to this gingerbread treat, don't you? Wrap the container up using a roll of cellophane, and festive ribbon. Don't use a cellophane bag (learn from my mistakes). It will cause breakage, and will make you want to cry. If there is breakage, no worries, a little extra royal icing comes in handy for any needed repairs.

Thanks for letting me come by and be part of this month long party!

Happy October everyone!