Gluten Free Ghostly Bites for Halloween

There will be plenty of my family’s traditional food for Halloween over the next few weeks.  This is a new, no-bake, and sure to be a firm favourite.

A couple of months ago now The Foods of Athenry were kind enough to send me a sample of their multiple award winning Gluten Free Christmas Pudding to sample.  As I’m a fan of all fruit cake, I’ve yet to eat one I don’t like, it wasn’t much of a hardship to sample the pudding.

I know, I know it’s not even Halloween yet, but bear with me!

I found it to be light, sweet and crumbly, however not quite as moist as I’m used to as we make a heavier steamed Christmas pudding.  I guess that comes from the suet that we use in our traditional recipe, Foods of Athenry use cider and butter, which is gorgeous.  When it comes to things like Christmas Cakes and Puddings, Brown Breads and other traditional Irish Family recipes I suppose I’m steeped so much in our traditions that it takes some getting used to when trying others!

Anyway, once I got past the idea of eating pudding so early in the year, after sampling I was left with half a pudding which was sitting idly in the basin, taunting me.  Normally I’d nip past every now and again with a spoon and a mug of tea but I was watching back issues of Nigella recently and noticed she had made “puddinis” last year.  Puddinis are mini chocolate truffles made with Christmas Pudding.

But it’s HALLOWEEN!

Well yes it is, but actually with the addition of some strategically placed icing, these “halloweeneys” are in season and the kids, nor the adults didn’t notice the decidedly Christmas flavouring.

I’ve made these gluten free ghostly bites with Christmas Pudding from The Foods of Athenry, however I’ll make my next batch with some gluten free Barm Brack (traditional Irish Fruitcake).  We do eat products containing gluten but we limit them where we can.

This recipe makes 10 ping-pong sized ghosts. For the purposes of the recipe please assume all the ingredients are gluten free, however that’s not to say that you can’t use conventional ingredients if you wish.

Ingredients

• 50g Dark Chocolate
• 25g Butter
• 10ml Golden Syrup
• 100g Fruit Loaf (I used Christmas Pudding)
• 200g White Fondant Icing
• 30g Icing Sugar
• 1 drop Black Food Colouring
• 1 teaspoon Water

Equipment

• Large heat-proof dish
• Microwave
• Large Spoon
• Teaspoon
• Baking Tray
• Cling Film
• Rolling Pin
• Cocktail Stick (for the eyes)

Method

1. Break the chocolate into small pieces and put into the ovenproof dish.
2. Use the microwave to melt the chocolate. I normally zap for 20 seconds at a time and stir after every turn.
3. Once melted, stir in the butter and golden syrup.
4. Crumble in the fruit loaf and stir well until every piece is coated in chocolate.
5. Cover your baking tray in cling film.
6. Using the small spoon & clean hands, shape the mixture while it is still warm into little balls then place onto the covered baking tray.
7. Once you have used up all the mixture, cover the baking tray with more cling film and chill for at least an hour.
8. To cover the balls, get a piece of fondant (shop bought is perfect) about an equal size to the truffle ball you want to cover.
9. Place between 2 large pieces of cling film and roll until you get a large shape enough to cover the ball.
10. Remove & cover the truffle ball.
11. For the eyes, mix together the icing sugar, black food colouring and water.
12. Using the tip of a cocktail stick, dip into the black sugar mixture and dab twice on each ghost.
13. Kept in a cool, dry place, these truffles will keep for up to a week.
14. If you prefer you can freeze the truffles for up to a month before covering in the icing and serving. Handy for preparing in advance of parties!