Halloween Food - Mini Monster Cheese Balls and Cake Ball Monsters too.

After every one of my parties, as I clean up all the left over food, I always notice that the cheese plate is completely empty. Now my husband may have something to do with that, but I do believe that no matter what occasion you are celebrating, cheese is always popular.

For our Halloween parties I don't want to just serve slices or cubes of cheese; I like to dress my cheese up. Often I will just simply cut shapes out of cheese slices using a cookie cutter, but more recently I've been turning cheese balls into festive shapes and my guests love it.

My inspiration for these Mini Monster Cheese Balls actually came to me at Valentine's Day, in a round about way. Last February I created Warm Fuzzy Cake Balls and while I was decorating them in red and pink colored coconut, I decided to see what they'd look like in orange and black for Halloween.

Cute, huh? I was planning to post them as a project here, but as I looked at the monster in the center of this picture, I couldn't help but think that the orange coconut looked like shredded cheese. So, instead of posting a tutorial for another coconut covered cake ball in the form of little monsters, I decided to share a similar yet different technique to create Mini Monster Cheese Balls.

If you'd like to make the sweet cake ball monsters, just follow the instructions for the Warm Fuzzy Cake Balls (go here) or the Coconut Chicks (here) and use orange and black food coloring to color your coconut. Add candy eyes and create other decorations like feet and antennae out of colored candy melts or white chocolate. 

Mini Monster Cheese Balls (makes approximately 18 monsters)

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup finely chopped cooked bacon (or use real bacon bits)

Decorations:

8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese*

black olive slices

pretzel sticks

white cheese slices

black food coloring marker

*I grated my own cheese, but I think a packaged shredded cheese would have worked a bit better as the shreds are usually stiffer and drier. When I picked up my monsters, I smashed the cheesy fur down which wouldn't happen with drier cheese shreds. 

Special Supplies Needed:

1 tablespoon size ice cream scoop, optional

small round metal cutter (from a set of round fondant cutters)

Instructions:

Stir all of the cheese ball ingredients together. Place 8 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese in a bowl. Scoop out a tablespoonful of the cheese ball mixture and drop it into the bowl of cheese. Toss it around in the cheese, pressing the cheese onto it until the entire cheese ball is coated in shreds. Repeat until you just have a tablespoon of filling remaining. You will need this to be the glue to hold the eyes and mouths onto your monsters.

Use a small round fondant cutter to cut eyes out of white cheese slices. Draw pupils onto the eyes using a black food coloring marker. For tips on using your markers go here.

Break pretzel sticks in half. Stick one, two or three sticks coming out of the top of each mini cheese ball. Use some of the remaining cheese ball filling to attach the cheese slice eyes to the pretzel sticks. 

Use the round fondant cutter to cut small little mouths out of the black olive slices. Use some of the cheese ball filling to attach them to each monster. 

Arrange on a serving platter and share with your guests. You can make the cheese balls for your monsters several days before your party, but don't decorate them until a few hours ahead of your party or the pretzels may get soggy. 

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Thank you for visiting Hungry Happenings 

-Beth

Products used to make this project that are available on Amazon.com (commission earned for sales)