Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers Halloween themed party.

Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers desserts.

Last year when I hosted my Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers Halloween party, my friends where a bit shocked to see my house had been taken over by spiders, rats, snakes, and bugs. Just the year before, during our monster movie party, someone pointed out how cool it was that we used such life like spiders to decorate our basement, when I turned to look at what he was talking about, my face was about 10 inches from a huge (yes, I mean huge - my husband would disagree) black spider dangling from a thin web.  I let out an ear piercing scream, as I do whenever I encounter a live arachnid, which had all of my friends laughing hysterically. So when they walked into my house this year and saw my infestation, they all did their best to remind me of my over zealous reaction to a spider.

Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers party appetizers.

Some years I have worked hard to create food for my parties that is as creepy looking as my decorations, but I honestly don't think I could have handled my kitchen counter being overrun with a bunch of realistic looking insects and rodents, so I opted to make some of my food look a bit cartoonish and cute. I even added some funny decorations, like the belching rat pictured above.

Being our theme involved a carnival, I was sure to have some popular midway fare, like popcorn, corn dogs, and cotton candy on hand. Of course, no ordinary food would do - the popcorn was infested with chocolate roaches, the corn dogs were decorated like bumble bees, and the cotton candy looked like webs full of candy spiders. We also had frog chips available to scoop up fly filled taco dip, a large caterpillar of buns ready for bar-b-que pork, a sweet and a savory cheese ball rat, spider web chips and dip, caterpillar cucumbers, chocolate mice, bug shaped bread, and more.

In upcoming posts I will share several of these recipes with you here at Hungry Happenings.

If you are interested, I will also be sharing some of our Creepy Crawler Carnival game ideas on my Hungry Halloween blog. Stay tuned.

I have already posted some recipes that I created for this party. Some recipes have been re-purposed for other occasions like Valentine's Day (sound odd, I know, but it worked for my Bee Mine Bumble Bee Corn Dogs), plus many of these recipes can be used for a bug or creepy crawler themed party. Click on the links under the pictures below to go directly to the recipes.  In some cases you will be taken to my Hungry Halloween website.

Bee Mine Bumble Bee Corn Dogs

Ladybug Rice Krispies Treat Pops

Googly Eyed Snake or Worm

Slithering Snake Snack

full tutorial at Hungry Halloween

Longtail - A cookies and cream rat

full tutorial over at Hungry Halloween

Cheesy Rat (sorry for the awful picture)

If you'd like to make a savory cheese ball rat, use the instructions for Longtail as a guide but use the following ingredients:

Mix together:

8 ounces cream cheese

8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 cup finely chopped crispy bacon

Shape rat and roll in:

1/2 cup crushed wheat crackers

For the decorations use:

 Ears - break off the points of two blue corn tortilla chips

Eyes - cut small rounds out of two black olives

Nose - a caper

Tail - just roll some of the cheese ball into a tail

NEW RECIPES

Recently Posted

Cookie Crumble Cheesecake Caterpillars

Creepy Corn Dog Centipedes

I also want to share a recipe idea from Tiffany at Cute Food For Kids. I sure wish these little mice would have been on my Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers buffet table last year. This guests at my party would have really loved this fun little appetizer made from a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. I think this is one of the cutest appetizers I've ever seen. Don't ya just love it? If you haven't visited Cute Food For Kids, be sure to do so.  Tiffany is incredibly creative and has so many wonderful ideas for kids lunches and snacks. 





I'm busy in my candy kitchen for the next few days working on a few orders, but I did have time over the weekend to make a few more Creepy Crawler recipes.  I'll get the posts put together soon and be back to share them with you. In the mean time, don't forget to enter my current Giveaway (expires September 18. 2011.) You could win a copy of my cookbook, Hungry Halloween, plus lots of great decorating supplies. Click to ENTER NOW.