When I was originally planning the desserts for the Halloween party, I wanted food that was fairly simple, kid-friendly, and that did not require special slicing or serving during a hectic party.

Here is what I came up with:

First, we have the tombstone sugar cookies, decorated with a little royal icing. I loved the tombstone cookie cutter as soon as I saw it, so I had to include these, despite the fact that they were pretty labor intensive.

Next we have some cupcakes that did not turn out quite how we planned. They were supposed to have marzipan tentacles like a sea monster, but after J and I waged an epic battle with the marzipan, the marzipan won.

Then we have my trifecta of Halloween goodness: pumpkin-shaped Rice Krispie treats, pumpkin cake balls (salvaged from cake-pops gone wrong), and the best find of all, Vanilla-Spice Pumpkin Fudge.

My husband swears that the fudge is probably the best he’s ever had, and I’ll be posting the recipe this weekend. I’m just too busy with heathen children tonight.

J made some caramel apples:

I also made some extra of the Rice Krispie Treats, because who doesn’t need more of those?

So, there ya have it. My dessert plan was good in theory, but required quite a bit of improvisation due to a minor disaster here and there, specifically cake pops that went way off course, and a marzipan feud that I ultimately lost. While I am normally not into such labor intensive food for such a large gathering, I think half the fun of a Halloween party is the creative/goofy/fun food that goes with it.

If I had to do anything differently, I would have test driven ALL of the recipes beforehand, so that I would not have had so many last-minute surprises. Zero-hour before a huge event is not the time to experiment…you think I would have learned that by now….