How to create a picture perfect snack-o'-lantern for Halloween
Feast your eyes on Maegan Brown's beautiful snack boards.
Feast your eyes on this delicious, edible pumpkin-shaped snack-o'-lantern board and recreate it at home with your favorite orange ingredients to graze on for Halloween.
Food blogger Maegan Brown, also known as The Baker Mama, has been crafting crave-worthy content that's almost too pretty to eat.
Her Halloween-inspired pumpkin snack board takes a fresh, festive approach to a charcuterie platter.
"I pretty much do a themed board for every holiday," Brown told "Good Morning America." "I always try to incorporate some healthier things into the boards, like fruits and proteins, along with some treats."
While other over-the-top candy-filled boards have filled social media feeds, Brown explained that her take on the trend is a healthy balance of sweet and savory that her four kids can enjoy throughout the day.
"I try not to do all candy cause you can only eat so much of it, and so for us it's more of a snack that we can put out and everybody can pick and choose what they pick out," she said. "I know it'll satisfy everybody, and I can trust that my kids can surround themselves and not go crazy on all sweets."
How to make the Baker Mama's snack-o'-lantern
While these can vary based on availability and individual preference or dietary restrictions, these are the ingredients Brown uses to create her board.
"Use the orange snacks that you have on hand and your kiddos love, but pick a variety," Brown suggested.
Ingredients
Carrot sticks or baby carrots
Dried apricots
Mandarins or oranges
Cantaloupe
Orange bell peppers
Cucumber, for the pumpkin stem
Cheddar cheese
Cheez-its or other orange cheese crackers
Cheese puffs
Black grapes
Blackberries
Black olives
Pumpkin creme sandwich cookies, like Pumpkin Joe Joe's
Candy corn
Other orange Halloween candy (Starburst, jelly beans etc.)
Directions
"There's lines on the outside of a pumpkin, so I decided to go up and down with my layers of ingredients to look like the natural indentations," Brown explained.
Using a 20-inch round serving platter or cutting board, place three triangular cookie cutters where the eyes and nose would be.
Place the grapes along the bottom area where the mouth of the jack-o'-lantern would be and curve them into a smile.
"You can come back in and adjust it at any point," Brown encouraged.
Place the blackberries inside the cookie cutters to form the nose and eyes, leaving the cookie cutters in place until the surrounding snacks can help it hold its shape.
Add the orange foods, starting with sliced cheddar cheese, and layer it down the middle of the board.
Next, add the Cheez-Its right alongside the cheddar slices, followed by caramel corn to the right of the cheese.
Layer the baby carrots horizontally, from top to bottom on the left of the cheese crackers, followed by the orange bell pepper slices to the right of the caramel corn.
Add the pumpkin cookies to the left of the carrots.
Continue and repeat this process with the remaining orange foods until the snack-o'-lantern is filled to the edges.
Use the cucumber slices and arrange them over the handle of the board to create the stem of the pumpkin.
Once the board is full, the pumpkin should take its shape and is ready for snacking!
Editor's note: This was originally published on Oct. 2, 2020.
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