No tricks, just treats!

Double, double toil and trouble: Sophie Farrah finds South West London’s most devilish delights and terrifying tipples this Halloween

Chilling chocolate 

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R Chocolate

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Hotel Chocolat

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DeRosier

Halloween just wouldn’t be the same without a cheeky bit of chocolate now would it? Sandrine in Sheen has been supplying lucky locals with luxury handmade Belgian chocolates for more than 30 years and at Halloween there are plenty of spooky treats to choose from, such as top-notch chocolate pumpkins and handmade wicked witches. Over in Richmond the sophisticated R Chocolate London also has a spine-chilling selection of Halloween horrors, which this year includes stylish skulls and unfussy pumpkins available in deliciously dark, milk or white chocolate. 

With a popular shop and café already in Southfields, award-winning chocolatiers DeRosier is now open in Earlsfield too and its tempting festive fare includes handmade, top quality chocolate skulls and pumpkins, and beautifully decorated chocolate lollipops.

Finally, with shops in Wandsworth and Clapham, Hotel Chocolat is another top spot for ghoulish picks with its Witches Warts (toffee popcorn coated in salted milk chocolate) and dangerously delicious Choose Your Poison liquor truffles, as well as some good vegan-friendly options too. 

Terrifying tipples

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Le Gothique's Halloween Beer Festival

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The Zombie Next Door Cocktail

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Dead Bison Cocktail

With its suitably spooky façade, restaurant and bar Le Gothique on Wandsworth Common is hosting its 9th annual Halloween Beer Festival, featuring over 100 ales, 25 ciders and a spot of live music too. 

Or enjoy a Halloween cocktail at Brick & Liquor's new Clapham cocktail bar, serving its trademark tasty tipples alongside sharing plates. Try The Zombie Next Door cocktail, made with Havana Club 7 rum, maraschino cherry, lime, kiwi, watermelon, pink grapefruit and orange, garnished with passion fruit and filled to the brim with flaming Chartreuse. 

Delicious, but deadly!

Over in Teddington award-winning pub The King’s Head will be hosting its first ever beer festival this month, which promises to be a weekend filled with live music, freshly prepared food with a German twist and a selection of ales and beers for guests to sample, plus a few autumnal favourites like mulled wine and cider. Nestled in the atmospheric lanes of Richmond is cosy cocktail hotspot SoBar – they’re getting in the spooky spirit with their gruesome sounding Dead Bison cocktail, made with ubrówka Bison Grass vodka, Chambord, lime juice and brown sugar, topped with juicy blackberries. Delicious,but deadly…

Blood-curdling biscuits 

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GAIL's

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Cavan

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Craft and Crumb

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Biscuiteers

Artisan bakery GAIL’s has created some biscuits that look rather horrifying (it is Halloween after all) but taste dangerously delicious. Their so-called Monster Fingers are in fact soft and chewy almond macaroons with whole blanched almond fingernails attached with sticky raspberry jam. Cavan’s group of stylish local bakeries have been making biscuits since 1929 and their freaky selection of gingerbread mummies, shortbread ghosts and chocolate shortbread skeletons are all made by hand; even the eyeballs are hand piped I’m told. For a suitably spooky Halloween half-term activity then Hampton-based cake kit company Craft & Crumb have created a Scary Monster Biscuit Kit that includes everything you need to make and decorate some of your very own creepy cookies at home. 

Luxury biscuit boutique Biscuiteers is another top spot for treats: its hand-iced mummies, witches, ghosts and vampires are wonderfully intricate, as is its Day of the Dead biscuit tin filled with cool and colourful Mexican-inspired skulls. If you fancy having a go at icing your very own creepy cookies then don’t miss its Halloween icing master classes, with some great options for both adults and tiny terrors alike. 

Creepy cakes

Aged just 22, Eric Lanlard became head pastry chef for Albert and Michel Roux. Now he is a celebrity chef in his own right and runs his very own cake emporium, café and cookery school on the river in Battersea called Cake Boy. This month Eric will be serving up some special spooky cupcakes as well as bespoke cakes (on request), and as an extra treat, he shares one of his wonderfully wicked pumpkin recipes to try at home (below). 

And finally, to Richmond, where the world famous Hummingbird Bakery is dishing up a range of equally tasty (and creepy) cupcakes decorated with bats, broomsticks, eyeballs and other petrifying paraphernalia. As an extra terrifying treat they’ve even revealed one of their wonderfully wicked pumpkin recipes to try at home (also below). Happy Halloween!

Chocolate, Pumpkin and Pecan Cake

Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus cooling and resting overnight

Cooking time: 1 hour 25 minutes

  • 125g pecan nuts
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 225g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 150g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
  • 3 eggs
  • 275g dark muscovado sugar
  • 275ml water
  • 3 tsp vanilla paste or extract
  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 3 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 100g peeled, deseeded pumpkin, grated cocoa powder for dusting

1) Preheat the oven to 170°C (fan 150°C)/325°F/ gas mark 3. Grease a 23cm (9in) diameter springform cake tin and line with baking paper.

2) In a large bowl, mix the pecans and cayenne pepper together. Place the nuts on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 10 minutes, or until they are golden and crunchy. Leave to cool, then roughly chop.

3) Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, making sure the surface of the water does not touch the bowl.

4) Beat the eggs and sugar together until smooth, then beat in the melted chocolate mixture, followed by the water and vanilla. Sift the flour and cinnamon together, then fold in until smooth. Fold in the pumpkin and chopped pecans.

5) Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn onto a cooling rack.

6) Wrap in clingfilm and store overnight at room temperature Dust with cocoa powder.

The Hummingbird Bakery’s Pumpkin Pie

  • 1 quantity Basic Pie Crust dough, unbaked (see recipe here)
  • 1 egg
  • 425-g tin pumpkin purée
  • 235 ml evaporated milk
  • 220 g caster sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus extra to decorate
  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 tablespoon plain flour
  • Lightly whipped cream, to serve (optional)
  • 23-cm pie dish, greased

1) Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.

2) Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. 2 Line the pie dish with dough and trim edges with a knife.

3) Put the egg, pumpkin purée, evaporated milk, sugar, cloves, salt, cinnamon, ginger and flour in a large bowl and mix until everything is well combined and there are no lumps. 

4) Pour into the pie crust and bake in the preheated oven for about 30–40 minutes, or until the filling is set firm and doesn’t wobble when shaken.

5) Leave to cool completely, and then serve with a dollop of lightly whipped cream and a light sprinkling of cinnamon.

  • This recipe is from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (revised and expanded edition) by Tarek Malouf. Published by Mitchell Beazley, £17.99, octopusbooks.co.uk

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