Looking for a healthier Halloween treat? Learn how to make gummy eyeballs, paleo style, using real food ingredients.
Being a summer girl at heart, the beginning of autumn makes me a little sad. It’s not that I don’t like the fall, but rather the foreshadowing of what is to come. You see, I sometimes feel that I would prefer to hibernate than to brave the winter.
That said, fall has a lot to offer, and my love of Halloween helps me get over the seasonal blues. Even as a kid I loved spending time planning out Halloween parties; a big part of that was to plan out creepy Halloween food.
I hate to admit that I’m the one in the ghost costume. You see, even back then I was crafting my own costumes.
I don’t know why gory food is so appealing. I guess it’s because it’s fun and different; an excuse to let us pretend and be kids again.
So, I’ve been playing around with new ways of making gross, yet ghoulishly good Halloween treats.
Lately I have seen a lot of healthy gummy treat recipes floating around the internet. I have tried making a raspberry-lime, a coconut and a watermelon version so far. Although my favorite was the watermelon, I thought the others might be better combined.
What better way to combine them than to make gummy eyeballs?
Spooktacular Gummy Eyeballs
Ingredients
- 80 g gelatin (unflavored)
- 2 cups berries (I used a mix of strawberries raspberries and blackberries)
- 1.5 cups coconut milk or you can make your own
- honey to taste
- blueberries
Instructions
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Blend berries with a hand mixer and strain the mix through a sieve to separate the seeds from the berry puree.
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Mix the berry puree with honey to taste in a saucepan over low heat. (I added around 2 Tbsp., but I don't have much of a sweet tooth.)
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Add half of the gelatin and stir until it is dissolved.
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In another saucepan, blend the coconut milk with honey and the other half of the gelatin and stir until dissolved.
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Place blueberries in round ice cube trays, one in each compartment. These will be the pupils of the eyes.
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Pipe in a small amount of your red, berry gelatin mixture. I tried piping it up the sides a little, the first time I made them, to give a bloodshot look, but I found that it all ended up in the bottom later on anyway.
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Place trays in the freezer for a few minutes to help set the red gelatin.
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Spoon in the white, coconut gelatin.
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Place your trays in the refrigerator until the gelatin is well set.
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Pop your eyes out. Ok, not YOUR eyes, the gelatin ones!!! Please!!! We only want fictional gore!
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The eyes look especially gory if you place them in a red liquid or sauce. Using some extra berry puree or juice works wonderfully. To be honest,when I took last year's pictures, I didn't have either available and used what I had one hand: red wine! I wouldn't suggest that for the kiddos though. This year I used leftover berry puree so I wouldn't have to eat them all myself.
Something to keep in mind when making these spooktacular gummy eyeballs:
If you put too much white gelatin in the mold, the blueberries will float!
I didn’t realize this with my first batch because at first they were stuck to the bottom with the red, set gelatin. When I added the warm, white gelatin, though, it ended up softening the red enough to free the blueberries. They floated to the top, and my pupils were gone!!!
In any case, I think these taste better with less coconut gelatin overpowering the other flavors.
The first time I made these, I wasn’t sure if I would like the combination of flavors. I mean, I was really just going for the appearance. Luckily, though, the flavors come together in such a way that I really liked these better than either of the gelatins on its own.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good these really are!
This year I added in more berry gelatin than last year. While they are really good, I think I like the way last year’s eyeballs looked better. In any case, it’s fun to experiment with these. I may even add some shredded coconut next year to try it out!
This post is also available in Español.
Was looking for the healthy “eyes” and am so happy I found them on your blog, Tracy – my daughter is having a monster party for her birthday and she was adamant she needed to feed her guests eyes! She also wants the prosciuto head and the worms, so you nailed our party food with those three! Thank you! Do you have any other spooky recipes that are not on the blog maybe?
Thanks for your comment, Masha!
I’m so glad you like them because not everybody appreciates my humor at Halloween. 🙂
I have a few more ideas for Halloween parties.
My latest recipe for the pumpkin soup can be decorated with spiderwebs as I show at the end of the post- but I guess that’s not a great food for parties. That said, the idea might be good for something more party like. I was thinking something like my pumpkin parfait in cups with the pumpkin part on top and the decoration on the top. The more I think about that, though, it may be a bit too complicated.
Depending upon what you allow in your diet, you can also make a cute cheeseball that looks like a pumpkin by rolling it in shredded carrots. Before I switched to real food I used to roll them in doritos. Sigh. But it does look very cute for a party and is easy to make ahead and serve with either crackers or cut veggies depending upon how healthy you want to get.
Lastly, you can make cookies that look like witches fingers using an almond as the fingernail. I’ve been meaning to come up with a healthy recipe to try out the idea for my blog.
If I think of more, I’ll let you know.
You can probably tell I love this sort of thing. 😉
Have a great party!
These are super cool!! I’m planning to share them on my FB page this coming week. Thanks for creating them!!! 🙂
Thanks, Starlene! I’m glad you like it! 🙂
Where did you find the circle ice molds? We looked at Target, Walmart, Dollar General, World Market, Bed Bath & Beyond and Pier 1 Imports and couldn’t find any….
I bought them from a local store here in Spain. (That probably doesn’t help you much)
That said, you can buy some from Amazon here.