No mom, don’t be scared! These are not the usual Halloween treats

We had Halloween parties on both Thursday and Friday at the school where I work. I have to admit that I’m not a bit Halloween fan myself, but with the kids…everything is different. The problem in doing the party at a school is the treats. There are kids with allergies, there are kids with weight problems, there are kids that are vegetarian or even vegan, and there are kids that simply have parents that do not want them to eat processed food or too many sweets. I do not disagree on any of these standings. I respect everybody’s choice in life in general and in how to raise kids and deal with their diet in this case.

The only issue is that with all these restrictions to comply with, what the heck CAN moms (dads) bring to school?! Of course, their kids will want to bring something but it is very hard to accommodate everybody’s dietary choice. On top of all this, there are moms (dads) that don’t find cookies and cupcakes decorating as easy as it is for many food bloggers I know! There are also moms (dads) that work full time and can’t afford the luxury of spending an entire afternoon baking goodies for their kid’s Halloween party. And finally, there are moms (dads) that simply can’t afford buying expensive treats (because let’s say it…many of these whole grain, organic, fresh, local - or whatever else denomination they might have – treats are sold in expensive store that not everybody can afford!).

I spent the whole week thinking about this and feeling bad for those moms (dads) that would simply want to make their kids go to school happy with a fun treat. I looked around on the blogsphere and all I could find were very sweet treats…adorable, cute, scary, spooky, everything you might want in a Halloween treat. But also very much covered in icing and/or containing ingredients prone to create allergies problems.

This is what I came out with: puff pastry cream cheese ghosts. You don’t need much money. You don’t need much time. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart to be able to make them. You just need frozen puff pastry, cream cheese at room temperature (so that it can be spread easily) and raisins to make eyes and mouth (if you don’t have calories issue you could make eyes and mouth by piping some melted chocolate).

I let the puff pastry defrost for a few hours in the fridge and I rolled it out pretty thin. Then the only thing I did was to cut out a little ghost shape from parchment paper that I used to cut out the puff pastry of the right shape. After baking the puff pastry, I let it cool down and then I spread the cream cheese and decorated with raisins.

I have to admit they were a pretty sweet treat even if not covered with a thick layer of icing. And again, if you don’t have calories restrictions you could always make a sweeter version by pouring melted white chocolate on the puff pastry instead of spreading the cream cheese.

Have a sweet Halloween!