Monday, October 31, 2011

31 October 1957 “The Halloween Party”

50shalloween2  Well, it is Halloween today. Though we celebrated with our Halloween Cocktail party four days ago. I hope you enjoy today’s spooky treats and treasures.

I am sorry it took me these three days to get this post about our party up. The tail end of October has just got away from me for some reason. Maybe it is my day-dreaming of the up coming Christmas season, which I always love and greatly anticipate.

I was a bad blogger and did not get as many photos as I planned of our guests. There were many wonderful costumes. Here is hubby and myself as the “Spirits of the Jazz Age”

party1 party5 Hubby in his coattail tuxedo and I in an early 1920’s rendition of a Jazz baby. Though you can’t see it very well in these pics, the beads hanging from my headpiece are actual vintage beads from my husbands great Grandmother. I am lucky to have a few such treasures saved from old clothing from the Edwardian and into the 1920’s from various family who thought it wise to clip and save bits of old beads and trim from outmoded and worn out dresses.

 party3 Here we are at the piano. My fan is also vintage 1920’s black silk.

party4Here my good friend took our theme of ‘fancy dress’ costuming and went as an ‘owl’. I like costumes that are themes but more ‘evening wear’ with a nod to an idea. victorianfancydressbutterfly Such as this Victorian fancy dress costume of a butterfly. One still wears evening clothes but with a nod to the costume, here butterfly wings and insert panels into the dress similar to the patterns on a butterfly wing.

Though we had a fair share of other such costumes. Here a friend came as her interpretation of a Starbuck’s Latte and another friend with her as a Gypsy.party14 I unfortunately did not get photos of all our guests. I am always faced with the conundrum of very meticulously documenting my life verses simply living and enjoying it. I am rather apt to choose the latter and forget the camera all together.

 

party10 Here is a photo of the table. Not everything was set up at this shot, but you can see the general feel. My lovely punch bowl in the middle was a gift this year from Gussie for my birthday. My birthday is in November but she said she couldn’t wait as it was so perfect for our party. She was right.

party11 My friend brought these darling little bag rings which we placed as favors on the cups and I think they look simply darling.

party6 party7 Everyone loves a good brownie. And I as I was making candy anyway, I found these darling skeleton molds. The brownies become little graves with delicate peppermint scented white chocolate deadlies sneaking out. I thought they looked ‘haunted house’ sinister presented on my old Victorian Transferware  Severn Platter.

This recipe HERE for brownies is what I often use and find it really easy and good. I always sprinkle a bit of chocolate pieces into the mix before baking. And as I was making candy that day, I had scrapings leftover and into the mix they went.

party8I adore old fashioned cake doughnuts. And this time of year, cider and cinnamon doughnuts are a sort of tradition. It always makes me feel such a part of a New England Autumn. This is the recipe I used for these and they are very easy to make and wonderful warm from the fryer or even two days later! I always find that a cake doughnut ages better than a yeast raised.

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup  melted butter
  • 1 cup milk or  1/2 milk and 1/2 cup cream
  • 4 cups flour and a touch more to handle dough
  • oil or lard for frying
  • cinnamon sugar

  • Mix all dry ingredients with a whisk to blend. Add wet ingredients (melted butter, eggs, milk/cream) and mix well

    Next add the flour and mix with wooden spoon or flour covered hands. If the dough feels too sticky, add up to another 1/2 cup or so of flour.

    Roll into ball (don’t over handle) cover and but in ice box for at least an hour. I prefer to make it the day before. And any leftover dough can be refrigerated for up to a week. Or keep some made up in the freezer for a few months at a time.

    Let stand for 20 minutes out of ice box, roll out on floured or marble surface and cut with doughnut cutter.

    Your hot oil should be about 360F. I always test with a donut hole first. Let it brown and turn a few times if you need to. When it is done inside in under 3 minutes, it is the right temperature.

    Drain and shake in a bag of cinnamon sugar mixture or confectioners sugar. Delicious!

    party9  These darling little candies were simply made by melting chocolates and using a little mold. The mold was designed to hold an Oreo sized cookie. I put a Christmas themed one HERE in the corner store. They are around $5 and are rather fun. I used white chocolate for the white and green and regular chocolate (milk) for the darker. I flavored the chocolate with peppermint, as I really love mint and chocolate. Though that would probably be better for a Christmas party, there were no complaints and the plate was soon emptied!

    party12 One of our guests makes incredible cakes. She delighted us all with this scary confection. It was home-made red velvet cake and homemade raspberry jam ‘blood’. He was rather scary but Very tasty.

     punch We had many beverages and cocktails, but in the center was our 'spooky punch’. It was made with strawberry daiquiri fixings (smashed up strawberries and sugar) and orange juice and ginger ale to make it bubble away. The scary ‘Goblin skin’ is simply scoops of lime sorbet. It was made without alcohol so those quests who don’t drink could enjoy it and those who wanted to could spike it with some white rum. You can also see a delicious bowl of peanut butter caramel corn home-made by one of my guests. I am lucky that my guests always see fit to bring such wonderfully made things to my parties, I am lucky in that.

    I am going to close with these fun Halloween ideas from the vintage cookbook Holiday Cookbook.

    halloweencookbook1 halloweencookbook2

    Enjoy and Happy Homemaking.

    11 comments:

    1. "I am always faced with the conundrum of very meticulously documenting my life verses simply living and enjoying it."

      Love this quote!

      Your party looked like it was so much fun! And that scary cake is one of the grossest things I have ever seen. I am so glad you and your guests had a wonderful time.

      Thanks doll,
      The Glamorous Housewife

      ReplyDelete
    2. Hello..may I have more information on that holiday cookbook, such as title/author/publisher/publish date? Looking for something similar for a relative for a gift

      ReplyDelete
    3. glamorous housewife-isn't the cake scary!? you should have seen when we cut into it eek!
      I do feel that way, the quote.

      Steph-I have this book in my corner store. Here is the link. I don't get any money from this either, as the used items I don't earn any money but I like to offer them up to people. They have copies as cheap as $4
      Here is the link
      http://astore.amazon.com/theaprorevo-20/detail/B00135ZYPM

      ReplyDelete
    4. Fantastic, thank you so very much! Such a shame you can't get a few pennies for linking..

      ReplyDelete
    5. How fun! Everything looks lovely!

      ReplyDelete
    6. Looks like it was a smash! Love your punch bowl( A staple at any party) Do you mind if I steal your Punch recipie for our Halloween Costume Ball next year?! We just had ours the 20th be we collect ideas all year round. you can read all about our "1957 Zombie Prom" here http://egtmicks.blogspot.com/2011/10/casablanca-costume-ball.html

      ReplyDelete
    7. Good Evening!

      Wow your Halloween Party looks like it was FANTASTIC! What a creative bunch you are :) I hope you had an absolute blast and have a fabulous week ahead!

      Happy All Hallows Eve!

      xxx Amber Lee

      ReplyDelete
    8. What a blogpost-treat! I truly wish I was invited to that party!

      And I feel the same way as you – I haven’t even packed away the Halloween decorations yet, but look SO much forward to Christmas. I simply cannot wait. I am Christmas crazy.

      I wish I could buy Halloween molds like yours, they are so lovely, especially the skeleton molds. Could you find some molds and put in the Corner Store Over the Pond? British Amazon is great too.

      The scary cake head is simply incredible – I love it! She could win a prize for that cake. Give her a compliment from Denmark.

      Thank you for sharing your lovely party, it was a treat to watch and read. I hope to host a Halloween party next year, this year we have simply been to busy renovating and a few days ago DH’s grandmother died, so we also have to take care of funeral etc. Deep sigh. I long to get my old boring life back!

      ReplyDelete
    9. Mick-you may surely use my 'recipe' though it is simply a gaggle of random ingredients, but was SO delicious and fun!
      Sanne-could you email me the link to my conerstore over the pond. I cannot find it! I literally cannot find the store and amazon stopped reporting info about it to me, so if you could give me back the link, I might be able to regain control over it and put some fun molds in for you.
      We are even going to spend less this Christmas but I am just excited about decorating, caroling, tree trimming parties and the like. It seems every year we take more 'buy buy buy' out of the Holiday, the MORE I look forward to it! No stress and just fun and enjoyment of one another and the lovely changing seasons here in New England.

      ReplyDelete
    10. Thanks for sharing these pics! I'd sure like to try making the little candies....easy enough to do?

      Brenda

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    11. Now I really feel like a hero:
      http://www.theapronrevolution.com/cornerstoreoverthepond.html
      A googling hero, haha! :)
      I found your old news page and there was a link to the British Corner Store. I had asked for it earlier, because I couldn't find it. Now you have it. :D

      I feel just the same about Christmas, no stress, just cosyness, decorating, lovely dinners, inviting friends and family - and baking!

      ReplyDelete

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