To me, the official start to the Halloween season kicks off with the arrival of fall themed foods in the grocery store, with spooky cereal being at the top of my “must have” list. Usually, I can expect boxes of Boo Berry and Count Chocula to start arriving on my shelves around mid-August. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this year was unusually slow…which meant I was deep into the heart of September and hadn’t spied a single box of spooky cereal. Rather than moan about it, I decided to take matters into my own claws and make my own spooky cereal to help tide me over until the stores started stocking my usual staples.
A quick search online brought up a wide array of DIY recipes, and after some serious pondering, I settled on one that not only looked delicious but that I knew I could pull off without too much difficulty. As much as I would have loved to make a fruity flavored one like Boo Berry or Franken Berry, I wasn’t confident that I would be able to pull off that almost cartoon level of sweetness in any way that would end up edible. Which is why I chose to use the Cinnamon Toast Crunch recipe I found on the Half Baked Harvest website (by the way, she has some amazing recipes on here, you should check them out!)
Because I wanted my cereal to be properly Halloween themed, I started first with the name, “Ghostie Toasties.” Sounds appropriately Halloween-ish, right? And while this recipe is based on the Half Baked Harvest original recipe, I did make some serious deviations in an attempt to make these as spooky as possible, including a truly poltergeist-worthy secret surprise ingredient that will only reveal itself at the very end.
Well, now that we have our theme in mind and recipe in hand, let’s get started! And yes, a few of these links are affiliate links. You can read all about those in my disclosure, here.
To make your own Ghostie Toasties, you will need:
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
- 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, divided
- 1/3 + 1 tablespoon room temperature butter, divided
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar (very important…it needs to be light. I used dark and it tinted my dough brown)
- 1/4 cup white sugar, divided
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons white food coloring
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon powdered dark blue food coloring
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Start by first pre-heating your oven to 350F/176C.
Add your vinegar to your milk and set aside to thicken for about 5-10 minutes. (Alternately, you can substitute buttermilk for this recipe, but I don’t normally keep buttermilk on hand which is why I made my own for this recipe.)
While your milk thickens, combine your flour with your baking soda and 2 teaspoons of the cinnamon in a food processor. Add in 1 teaspoon of your pumpkin pie spice and pulse to combine.
Dice up your room temperature butter and add that to your dry ingredients along with your brown sugar, 1/8 cup of your white sugar, the vanilla, and your honey.
Continuing to pulse until you end up with a grainy, almost sand-like mixture.
Mix your white food coloring into your thickened vinegar milk and then drizzle this into your mixture and continue to process until you end up with a thick dough ball. (Because we’re using cinnamon and brown sugar in our recipe, both of which are brown, we’re adding in the white food coloring to brighten up our dough a bit and give it a more ghostly look. This is purely cosmetic and optional and you are welcome to skip this step if you want.)
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into four sections. Working with one section at a time, sandwich them between wax or parchment paper and roll out until approximately 1/4″ thick.
In a small microwave bowl, melt your remaining 1/2 cup butter and use a pastry brush to give your rolled out dough a quick swipe of melted butter.
In another bowl, combine your remaining 1/8 cup white sugar with your powdered sugar and your blue powdered food coloring.
Allow the butter on your dough to cool just enough that it’s no longer liquid but still sort of “sticky” and then sprinkle this powder over top. The goal is to keep your blue food coloring as dry as possible, and you’ll see why later.
Now it’s time to cut out our Ghostie Toasties shapes. I chose a ghost for my cereal but unfortunately didn’t have a ghost shaped cookie cutter small enough. What I did have was an itty-bitty gingerbread man that I figured I could alter to look like a ghost.
To make my ghost I first cut out my tiny gingerbread man. Then, using another ridiculously small rolling pin, I flattened him out to approximately 1/8″ thick. I then used a small scalloped tart cutter to give the bottom of his ghostly body.
And there you have it, one tiny perfect little Ghostie Toastie. And now that you have one done, you can go ahead and do the remaining 499.
Okay, so I’m being slightly facetious. I have no idea if you’ll end up making 500. To be honest, I lost count after I crossed the 300 mark..and just kept going…and going…and going.
No, really…keep going.
Continue rolling out your dough and cutting out ghosties until you are completely out of either dough or sanity, whichever comes first. And don’t worry about the blue powder we dusted on top of our dough being kneaded back into the rest when you rework your leftover bits. That’s perfectly fine and will just add to the surprise at the end of this DIY.
Once your ghosts are cut out, carefully transfer to parchment or Silpat lined baking sheets. Give each ghost a poke or three with a toothpick (I gave them eyes and a mouth) and then pop into your oven for approximately 7-9 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE. And heads up, because these damn things are so small, it’s really really easy to over bake them. A matter of seconds can make the difference between golden brown and plague-riddled burned black.
Allow them to cool completely and then store in an airtight container.
But hang on, half the fun of Halloween cereal is the box they come in, right?
In order to really sell the idea that these Ghostie Toasties are “legit” (and to fill the hole in my heart by the fact that I totally missed out on some of the coolest Funko Cereals that were released a few months ago) I decided to design my own cereal box, using an old Lucky Charms box as my template. And come on, those adorable ghost bowls from Target were way too cute (not to mention perfect!) to not to end up being featured both in the recipe and the box, right?!? (Psst, they’re in the Dollar Spot right now!)
And come on, those adorable ghost bowls from Target were way too cute (not to mention perfect!) to not to end up being featured both in the recipe and the box, right?!? (Psst, they’re in the Dollar Spot right now!)
A few hours on Photoshop, a quick trip to Kinko’s, and some spray glue later, and I had my very own “Ghostie Toasties” box!
I mean, damn…that looks seriously legit!
All I need are some footie pajamas and a few hours on a Saturday morning watching cartoons and eating huge bowls of this cereal!
But wait…there’s more!
Remember that blue food coloring we added into our powdered sugar mixture? When you pour milk over these little ghosties, they turn the milk a spooky blue!
And the more you let them sit, the bluer it gets!
But don’t let them sit too long! Because this cereal is homemade and doesn’t contain a lot of the stabilizers and chemicals the big box brands do, it will start to turn to mush after about 5 minutes. Which means if you’re eating these with milk, you’ll want to do it fairly quickly.
Of course, if you’re just snacking on them and grabbing a handful or two on the go, they’re delicious! They taste a bit like a cross between Teddy Grahams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch with a slight pumpkin spice flavor. Mmm…
And if you want to make your own box, just save the image below to your computer and then print it out on a legal sized piece of paper. It’s already sized to fit over the front of a standard size box of cereal. You’ll have a bit of overhang to give you room for adjustments, but a bit of trimming and you’ll be all set!
So delicious…it’s scary!
Bone appetite!
And for another scary treat for breakfast, why not try some bourbon vanilla dread pudding or the pitch black deep fried doughnut hole oubliettes?
Speaking of breakfast, nothing beats breakfast in bed…especially if you’re using our DIY Dead and Breakfast Lap Desk tray!
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