Ah, Halloween. The time of year when children go door to door receiving countless donations of sweets, chocolate and treats. It’s tricky to feed your ghoul, goblin, cat, superhero or Elsa with anything nutritious when there’s so much junk available. No matter how well you ration the sweets, you’re going to need a few healthy(ish) foods to tempt those little horrors away from the rubbish. Here are a few freaky fruits and scary snacks to horrify your monsters!

Ghostly Banana Pops (makes 8 pops)

This is a great recipe for children to get involved with. Once the chocolate has melted, transfer it to a cool bowl and everyone can dip their own banana. Have a competition to see who can ice the scariest face on their ghost!

You’ll need:

• 200g white chocolate
• 4 small bananas
• 8 lolly sticks
• black icing pen, or gel icing

How to make it:

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over just simmering water. Be careful not to let the water touch the bottom of the bowl or the chocolate could burn. Cut the bananas in half.

Dip a lolly stick in the melted chocolate and push into the flat side of a banana half. Repeat for the rest of the bananas.

Dip each halved banana in melted chocolate to coat and leave to set. I put mine in a short glass filled with tissue paper to support the lollies. Once the chocolate has set, draw scary faces on the bananas with black icing.

Eyeballs in Goo (makes 6-8 bowls)

Ok, jelly isn’t that healthy, but it’s a fun way to encourage your child to try something new, like lychees. This is a child-friendly version of these boozy jellies. I strongly suggest making both, just don’t mix them up!

You’ll need:

425g tin of lychees 10-12 fat blueberries 2 tablespoons of raspberry coulis (optional) a block of green jelly, made up according to the packet instructions

How to make it: Drain the lychees and push a blueberry into the opening of each. If you want to, dribble a little raspberry coulis in the lychee and over the finished ‘eyeball’ to add extra gore. Once the jelly has set, mash it up with a fork and spoon into small bowls. Children love to squish jelly! Top each bowl of ‘goo’ with a pair of lychee eyeballs and seriously gross out your kids.

Spooky Spider Sandwiches (makes 4)

These sandwiches were inspired by the cluster of spiders lurking outside my front door. They’re probably actual size, too. Using rye bread gives a great dark colour to these sandwiches, but wholegrain works just as well.

You’ll need:

• 4 slices of rye bread (or Biona millet bread for gluten free spiders)
• chocolate spread
• 32 pretzel sticks (Barkat make gluten free ones, if you need them)

How to make it:

Cut circles of bread with a biscuit cutter and toast them until golden and crispy. You should get 2 circles from each slice of bread. Spread chocolate spread over four toast circles. Arrange eight pretzel sticks around the circle to look like a spider’s legs. Place the remaining toast circle on top of each spider.