3 spook-tastic bakes the little ones will ADORE making

Brought to you by Homecook.

Trick or treat, trick or treat, give us something good to eat.

Halloween is the BEST time to get a bit of baking done. You can never have enough treats at Halloween time (sure if you go too mad just give them to the trick-or-treaters) and it's so fun decorating all the baked goodies with some Oíche Shamhna flair. But we're still all about maximum efficiency. When baking with the kids, sure, you know yourself, these are some short attention spans we're working with. So for our recipes, we will be using Homecook's cake mixes for our bakes, just to make things easier for you and the kids. And fewer ingredients also means fewer things to throw around kitchen. Bonus.

1. Creepy cupcakes

These are our ludicrous lemon drizzle cupcakes. Pick yourself up a box of Homecook's lemon drizzle cake mix. All you need to do is add eggs, margarine, and milk. Rather than make a cake here, we're going to go the cupcake route so make sure to pick up some spooky themed cupcake holders. The cupcakes will take less time in the oven than the cake so reduce the cooking time by about half. When they start to feel springy on top, stick a skewer or thin knife in the middle and if it comes out clean you are good to go! There are several options for decorating these. You could go down the usual route and just drizzle a bit of icing sugar on top and then throw on some Halloween decorations. Alternatively, you could use butter icing. For a basic butter icing, mix one part butter to two parts icing. For this recipe, 150g of butter should do it. Mix that with 300g icing sugar, throw in a splash of milk (about 1-2 tablespoons), and then add food colouring. We recommend orange, purple, or even black. A third option is to pour some melted white chocolate over the cupcakes - the Homecook Wonderbar would work a treat for this - and then decorate with some coloured icing. Make a skeleton smile or a ghost, or dribble some red icing on top for a blood effect.

2. Ghost brownies

We love these. They're super easy and super cute. Homecook's brownie mix is so handy to work with. All you do is add eggs, butter, and water, and throw them in the oven. Once the brownies are done, pop some marshmallows on top (stick them down with a dot of icing sugar) and then drizzle the marshmallows with either icing sugar or white chocolate (the white chocolate with the brownie is particularly scrumptious). Add a few spooky faces to complete your, let's face it, adorable ghost brownies.

3. Worms and muck

You will need to make chocolate butter icing and brownies for this recipe. For the brownies, use the same ones listed above and, once they're done, crumble them up to look like dirt. For the chocolate butter icing, melt about 100g of milk chocolate and leave it to cool. Mix 200g butter, 400g icing sugar, 5tbsp cocoa powder, and about 2 tbsp milk together. When the melted chocolate has cooled, pour that in as well. Grab some glasses or clear plastic cups and fill the bottom with the chocolate icing. Then put a good amount of the crumbled brownie on top of that, followed by another layer of icing, and then another layer of crumbled brownie. For the finishing touch, get your jelly worms and stick them on top. Now you have a lovely cup of dirt and worms to gobble down. There you have it. Four dark and delicious treats to enjoy this Halloween season. But that is NOT ALL, mums and dads. We have a little competition you can enter below if you'd like to nab a Homecook hamper that includes all the chocolate and cake mix you need to bake these yummy goodies as well as some brand-new baking utensils. To be in with a chance of winning, simply fill out the form below. Brought to you by Homecook, one of Ireland's leading home baking brands. Helping you bake since 1967, the Homecook range includes an array of delicious baking and cooking products including cooking chocolate and cake mixes. The family favourite cooking chocolate - Homecook Wonderbar - is produced to Homecook's secret recipe at their chocolate factory in Drogheda. Homecook products are stocked in SuperValu, Centra, Tesco, and Dunnes nationwide.