Talk about eye candy! Pick a simple color palette and it’s easy to create a Halloween mosaic for the center of your table—which can double as favors when the party’s over! All you need is a tray and an assortment of different types of candy in your color scheme. (To make our Jack O’ Lantern, we chose black, orange, and brown licorice vines for the stem.) Group the candy into your desired shape on the tray and place in the center of the table. You can also put out treat bag bags and a spoon, and guests can scoop up the sweet decor and take it to go.

To make the Jack O’Lantern above, set a small round tray inside a large rectangular tray, and fill in the space around the round tray (or plate or bowl or springform pan) with black candy. When the black “frame” is finished, pull out the round tray and you’ll have a circle that’s ready to fill in with orange candy. Once the orange circle is done, add the black face details, pushing aside the orange candy to make room as needed. Lay the twizzler vines on top to create a stem.


1.Orange Candy, 2. Licorice Laces, 3. Candy Skulls, 4. Orange and Black Sour Candy, 5. Black Tray

 

If you like working with a stencil-like guide, look for other shapes in your kitchen that might work; you could use triangle shaped cookie cutters for the eyes,for example, or glasses to create round eyes.

We love Jack here, but you can group candy in any spooky shape you like. Think of…A witch’s hat
Black cat
Skull
Black bat
A white ghost
Anything your creepy heart desires

The same technique can be used to make candy wreaths at Christmas, hearts at Valentine’s Day, even initials or numbers for someone’s birthday.

photo credits