Spooky Halloween treats

These little sweet treats are very common in Denmark, the rest of Scandinavia and Germany, but I have yet to find a similar product in an English-speaking country. The classic version is with plain marshmallow filling covered in dark chocolate. But these are fun and different little spooky Halloween treats if you want to be the favorite place for the neighborhood kids to visit on Halloween.

The version I made here is with lemon, but all sorts of flavors can be added to give the marshmallow the taste of your desire. The classic plain soft marshmallow with dark chocolate cover are also very delicious, and if you want to switch it up, you can simply use white chocolate for decorating these. That way you can do both white and black spooky Halloween treats.

Normally (that is when I make the classic version) I don’t add eyes to the treats. I’ve only done so here to make them look like little scary ghosts. If you want to do something different for your dessert, soft marshmallow can also be used as ice cream topping. That is how we do it in Denmark. And it’s really really good!

White chocolate-covered soft marshmallow treats with lemon (makes 12)

Ingredients

The base:

Zest of ½ a lemon, preferably organic, finely grated
5.3 oz (150 g) marzipan
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp icing sugar for rolling out the dough

Soft lemon marshmallow:

3.5 oz (100 g) sugar
1.4 oz (40 g) corn syrup
1.8 oz (50 g) lemon juice, freshly squeezed
2.6 oz (75 g) egg whites

Chocolate cover:

10 oz (300 g) white chocolate
0.5 oz (15 g) dark chocolate

Directions

The base

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 Celsius), and put all the ingredients for the base in a medium-sized bowl. Then knead the ingredients together and roll out the dough on a layer of icing sugar to a thickness of 1/4 inch (½ cm).

2. Now cut out small circles with a glass about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Put the dough circles on a baking tray covered with baking parchment. Bake them in the oven for approximately 5 minutes until they are golden on top.

Soft lemon marshmallow

1. First, mix the sugar, corn syrup and lemon juice in a small casserole and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil until it reaches a temperature of 242 F (117 Celsius). Use a sugar thermometer to check the temperature.

2. Whip the egg whites with an electronic mixer and carefully add the warm sugar mix gradually while beating at highest speed with the mixer. Continue whipping at highest speed for about 5-10 minutes until the marshmallow mix is shiny and very firm and has reached room temperature.

3. Then pour the soft marshmallow into a piping bag with a round piping nozzle and pipe out high tops on the baked bases. Let the marshmallow-topped bases rest for an hour at room temperature.

Chocolate cover

1. Temper the white chocolate and cover each marshmallow treat by placing it on a fork over the bowl of chocolate and pour over the chocolate with a spoon till the marshmallow is fully covered. The bottom of the base is not supposed to be covered, so don’t worry about that. Carefully shake the treats to get rid of excess chocolate before transferring them to a sheet of baking parchment, letting the chocolate rest until it hardens.

2. Finally, decorate the little spooky Halloween treats. Temper the dark chocolate and transfer to a piping bag and add little eyes to your treats. Also, you can have fun with it and make expressions on the little ghosts’ faces if you like.

Enjoy!

Here are more recipes to get you in Halloween spirit:

Halloween lasagna with lamb pumpkin and sage

Beef stew with pumpkin, red wine and gremolata

Danish mulled wine – Glögg