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If you’re the kind of person who loves being the number one trick-or-treat stop on the block, we have some essential dos and don'ts to keep the neighbourhood kids from running screaming from your door.

Who better to ask than kids and parents themselves? ����ý Food and Bitesize teamed up to ask kids and parents alike the best, worst and just plain confusing treats they’ve received on Halloween. Be warned – you might find some of the responses quite shocking.

Yes, really. We couldn't believe it either, but multiple people said they’d received a variety of vegetables on the doorstep. “My son was offered a potato as they’d ran out of sweets,” said Helen Allen. “He took them up on their offer.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking this might be an isolated incident, but no. More reports of veg-based "treats" have come to light. “I remember being given a can of beans once as a child!” said Emily Farnsworth.

And perhaps worst of all, two individual cases of chocolate-covered Brussels sprouts, according to both Sarah Webb and Reecey Roo – a sneaky Halloween trick that can only have been premeditated.

The key question here is, if you’re caught short with no treats to hand out, what do you do? Is it better to hand out a potato or nothing at all? Well, we think we have a few better options.

Simple treats at home

A reckons 30 percent of people prefer to make treats rather than buy them from the shops. If you haven’t bought in your customary treats, a bit of home baking can really dig you out of a hole.

Our advice is, keep it simple and sturdy to carry around in a bouncing Halloween loot bag. Chocolate is universally popular and it fits the Halloween colour palette! These rice krispie cakes only need a few ingredients, and you can have them chilling in the fridge in half an hour. Likewise, chocolate muffins are an easy win.

Keep in the spooky fun with a Halloween biscuit and scary cookies. If you want to go for full-on confectionary, we have some surprisingly simple homemade sweets recipes.

A word on safety

It’s especially important to stay on top of health and cleanliness, so make sure your treats are well-wrapped if you can. “I think it’s gross when people give out sweets without a wrapper on!” says Toni Leeson. Baking paper and cling film both work well in a pinch, or you could get individual little bags if you really want to impress.

It's a good idea to make a nut-free snack, as a precaution. Always be really clear with parents about what's in your homemade treats. Labels on individually wrapped treats can be reassuring. And some parents might not be happy for their child to take a homemade treat, so maybe keep a bowl of potatoes on hand after all.

The great raisin debate

An age old question for those looking to hand out healthy treats – is it acceptable to hand out boxes of raisins on Halloween? We put the question to the social media followers of ����ý Food and ����ý Bitesize and the results were pretty emphatic.

Raisins are out, chocolate and sweets are in! Halloween is one of a few days in the year when the gloves are off and we eat sweets until we feel a little bit queasy. There’s another 300-something days when we can eat raisins.

This rule goes for other fruit-based treats like apples and oranges too. Hats off to Sally Thornhill for owning up to giving out satsumas one year. “I drew pumpkin faces on them and everything,” she says. “Sorry to everyone who visited that year.” We'd have eaten one, Sally.

That doesn’t mean healthy treats are completely out of the window if they don't look too healthy. Justine Pattison's healthy flapjacks, for example, have a boost of oats, dried fruit and less sugar than most sweets. Likewise these banana and chocolate muffins have the best of both worlds: fruit and chocolate.

If you forget, or run out of sweets…

There’s always time to come up with an outside the box idea! Treats are just one half of the trick-or-treat equation after all – perhaps it’s time to dust off your top hat and tails for some magic tricks. Or distract the trick-or-treaters with a family pet. “We did run out of treats and offered cuddles with our guinea pigs instead,” said Laura Horton. “All the visiting trick or treaters loved it!"

If all else fails, don’t panic. Your odd gift might turn out to be the best gift ever, or a funny story for years to come. "Kids got an Easter egg to share one year," says Gina Appleton. "They still talk about it being the best sweet ever!"

����ý Food and ����ý Bitesize users unveiled Halloween treats including old mince pies, tubes of toothpaste, cheesy crisps, dog biscuits and curry sauce, as well as the aforementioned potatoes and tins of beans.

Needless to say, we don’t recommend handing out random bits of old food and dog biscuits to trick-or-treaters. The toothpaste was handed out by local dentists on both occasions so that’s understandable, but needless to say, you don’t have to accept anything you don’t feel comfortable with. The most important thing is to stay safe, and if it comes to it, you can always go home and whip up your own spooky Halloween treats!

Originally published October 2021