At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
Back to their quiet graves below

~Theodosia Garrison

I love Hallowe’en! The fact that is a traditionally Irish holiday makes it all the better.

This Hallowe’en was a little bit EPIK (sorry for the pun – I’m an EPIK teacher in Korea and it was an EPIC weekend). The weekend before, some friends and I went to Everland, an amusement park near Suwon in South Korea. Despite the long queues we had a great time and even went to a Horror Maze. Confession: I closed my eyes for a good portion of this but I will admit that I think I psyched myself out trying to imagine what would be inside. As much as I love Hallowe’en the “gory” elements like zombies are not really my cup of tea. What I do love about Halloween are the decorations, the plethora of candles, pumpkins with scary faces and really creative carvings, persimmons (I was only introduced to this fabulous fruit when I arrived in Korea), ghosts, ghouls, mummies, and witches.

The last couple of years that I was in Ireland, my friend Alessandra (and Prescillia) organised Hallowe’en parties at her house. Everyone dressed up and there was plenty of wine, good food, and great company. I enjoyed them so much that when I came to Korea I wanted to throw my own party. My first year it was just a couple of friends; but last year and this year, it was a big crowd.

I decorated my house (with some assistance) ahead of time, including making some Jack O’Lantern persimmon and origami skull faces. My friends and I made food from all around the world: Korea, Germany, USA, Canada, Spain,  India and Ireland were represented. I made my Kale and Rasher Stuffed Mushrooms, an experimental Stuffed Pork Steak (recipe will be up once I tweak it), Colcannon (recipe will be up next week) and I turned my Ice-Cream Cake into a Ghostly Graveyard.

Ghostly Graveyard Ice-cream Cake

Serves 12-15

Ingredients

• 1 recipe Twix and Vanilla with Cookies and Cream Ice-cream Cake
• ¾ cup oreo wafer/oreo cookies, broken
• 5 Peppridge Farm® Milano cookies
• 7 marshmallows
• Chocolate Writing Pen
• Wine apple /pomegranate seeds (handful)

Method

1. Prepare the ice-cream cake ahead of time.
2. At least 4 hours before serving, make skull faces/ghost faces or write “help”/ “BOO” using the chocolate pen. Set aside to harden.
3. On the Milano cookies, make crosses and write “RIP” and set aside to harden.
4. Meanwhile, put the oreo wafers/cookies into a blender and pulse until finely crushed. You can also do this with a rolling pin.
5. Remove the ice-cream cake from the freezer and push in the milano cookies, vertically, and arrange the skulls and ghosts around the graveyard, pushing in as needed.  Spread the cookie crumbs over the surface and around the graves and skulls. Put in the freezer.
6. Remove from freezer after an hour. Sprinkle with some wine apple seeds, cover carefully, and place in the freezer until needed.

Tips

Make it your own: If you don’t want to use wine apple, cut red jelly beans in half and sprinkle around the graveyard. I really wanted to use white chocolate Reese’s mini peanut butter cups but sadly we don’t have them in Korea. If you have access, make the marshmallows into skulls and make two eyes on the Reese’s cups. Turn them upside down so that they have a “ghost” shape.