With Halloween just around the corner, kids with braces will be tempted to chew on sticky candy that could tear off brackets and delay treatment. But parents, don’t fear! For those of you hosting Halloween parties for kids with braces, try out these recipes for orthodontist-approved treats!

Frightful Finger Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup almond slices
1 tube red decorating gel
1 tube green food coloring

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla. Slowly beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. Add drops of green food coloring to dough until you achieve a nice deep green color. Divide the dough into four equal parts, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Take one quarter of the dough at a time from the refrigerator. Break off one heaping teaspoonful and roll it into a finger shape. Squeeze in around the middle of the finger to create a knuckle shape. Then, using a butter knife, make indents in several places to resemble a finger. Repeat with rest of dough.  Place cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes – let cool. Then, squeeze red decorating gel onto the tip of each finger and gently press an almond sliver on top so the gel oozes out from underneath. Remove cookies from baking sheets and let them cool on wire racks.

Spider Bites

Ingredients

1 cup shortening
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. water
½ tsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. vanilla
1 package black rope licorice cut into short 1” pieces
2 eggs
1 small tube of green (or
color of choice) decorating gel
Toothpicks

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine shortening, sugar, water, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Add eggs into the mixture and blend. Slowly mix in flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder using low medium speed. Drop tablespoon helpings of mixture onto ungreased cookie sheets and roll each helping into a ball. Bake 9 minutes at 375 degrees. The batch should produce around three dozen cookies. Let cookies cool for about 10 minutes. Then using a toothpick, create four small holes in either side of the cookie. Still using the toothpick, push one end of a piece of the cut licorice into each hole, creating the “legs” of the spider. Keep licorice pieces short so as not to harm braces. Once all eight pieces are in place, create eyes or decorate at will using the green decorating gel.

Halloween Parfait

Ingredients

3 boxes instant vanilla pudding
1 teaspoon red food coloring
1/2 teaspoon yellow food coloring
one 9 ounce package plain chocolate wafers
6 cups milk
chocolate syrup to taste
one 8 ounce can mandarin oranges, drained

Directions

Combine pudding mix and milk in a large bowl as directed on the package. Refrigerate until firm. Crush chocolate wafers into crumbs, using a food processor, or put the wafers into a plastic food storage bag and crush with a rolling pin. Combine red and yellow food coloring in a small bowl. Stir into pudding thoroughly, until pudding is orange. Alternate layers of pudding with layers of  chocolate crumbs in a parfait cup or glass for a total of three layers of pudding. Top each layer of crumbs with chocolate syrup to taste before adding the next pudding layer. Top each parfait with  mandarin oranges and additional chocolate wafer crumbs. Makes eight 8 ounce servings.

Mounds of Brain Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter
(softened)
4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 tube black food coloring
1 colander

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine butter, 2 cups of the flour and the sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well blended. Slowly mix in the remaining 2 cups of flour. Add a few drops of the black food coloring until the mixture turns a grayish color. Cover and refrigerate for 15-20 minutes. Then, taking large sections of the dough, push it through the colander to make rope like shapes. For each cookie, take small handfuls of the rope like dough and gently layer the pieces on top of each other on a greased baking sheet. Each should be formed into a brain like shape. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until brown at the edges.

Recipes courtesy of American Association of Orthodontics