Halloween: trick or treat? | Insight | Macphie

In the catering world, holidays can make for big business.

With all the frozen treats, gin-flavoured delights and floral-scented flavours that have dominated the market this summer, consumers’ palates are beginning to crave indulgences that are a little bit … darker in their execution.

Past haunts

Presenting a fantastic opportunity for seasonal sales, Halloween is growing in popularity as a holiday focus for operators, during which the consumers’ appetite for spooky indulgences and sweet bakes spikes.

Though many people’s original associations with Halloween involve jack o’ lanterns, painstakingly dug out from a turnip or a pumpkin before adding a torch or tealight to scare away would-be ghouls, today’s trends are decidedly more avant garde.

Whilst these root veggies were once the centre of attention, nowadays it’s all about making the most of today’s sweet trends.

Terrifying Trends

Activated charcoal is very much the ingredient du jour and its popularity shows little sign of waning.

Its jet-black hue lends itself perfectly to any baked good – from midnight meringues to a witchy latte – expect to see inventive applications popping up throughout October as Halloween approaches.

Seasonal pumpkin remains ever-popular – and is devilishly delicious when added to a traditional carrot cake recipe.

Icing remains a versatile way to take advantage of the season.

Try topping any cake with white chocolate webs and edible black fondant spiders, or go wild with carefully piped raspberry ripple intestines on top of your bakes.

Drawing inspiration from Dia de Los Muertos – the Latin American Day of the Dead – we see some bakeries, including Peggy Porschen cakes in London, intricately icing sugar skulls onto cookies.

Adding a touch of seasonal icing flair to your cookies will only cement their popularity as the most-munched sweet bakery option.

Classic cakes “dressed up”

What would Halloween be without a jammy doughnut, munched with both hands behind your back?

With the doughnut category demonstrating sizeable growth, these divine delights are now eaten on 2.5% of total out of home meal/snack occasions.

A whopping 295million doughnuts were purchased in UK outlets in the last year.

Cake occasions have increased by 20million and much of this growth has been driven by an increase in occasions for cake slices.

A little matcha added for a ghoulish green tinge, coupled with careful application of a red fruit faux-gore filling – seasonal added-value is a cinch.

Halloween also provides an excellent opportunity to have some fun with more adult flavours, with operators plumping for burnt caramel, smoked chilli and devilishly dark chocolate to ensure that grown up palates don’t go overlooked.

Selling petite versions of popular bakes and cakes also helps tap into the trick or treat market – think spooky snack tubs, or portioned tray bakes.

On the other hand, larger themed party cakes will be snapped up in line with the rise in Halloween house parties and big events.

Happy Mallow-een!

Here at Macphie, we’re excited about our brand new mallow product, which just so happens to make the perfect ghoulish treat.

Ready to use, its premium taste profile and excellent performance from blind sensory taste panel results makes it a no-brainer when it comes to delivering a luxurious, indulgent eat.

With an incredible range of applications, mallow provides a perfectly fluffy filling or fantastic finish to a range of products.

Think freaky fondant cake fillings, lemon meringue pies topped with mallow ghosts, iced cookie eyeballs, ghoulish cupcake toppings or spooky coconut snowballs.

Contact our customer services team for more details.

It would be a grave mistake to miss out.