Haunted Mansion Themed Dinner
Welcome, foolish mortals. This week, we are wrapping up our Halloween festivities with a Haunted Mansion themed dinner!
There’s no doubt about it – the Haunted Mansion is my absolute favorite attraction at the Disney Parks. This fan-favorite ride takes guests on a spooky tour through a dilapidated estate inhabited by the spirits of the deceased.
The Haunted Mansion has developed quite a large and devoted following over the years, and it’s no surprise. The moment you step through the mansion’s doors, you become totally immersed in the rich storyline. It’s satisfyingly creepy, but also fun and light-hearted. Everywhere you look there are amazing details to discover, which makes you want to ride again and again. Tie it all together with the beloved anthem, “Grim Grinning Ghosts,” and you have an attraction showcasing Disney Imagineering at its finest.
The popularity of the Haunted Mansion has led to various tv specials, films, comics, and now the highly anticipated 2023 feature film release. But for our Haunted Mansion dinner, I wanted to focus solely on the attraction itself and everything we love about it.
So, settle into your doom buggy (and beware of hitchhiking ghosts) while I share our Haunted Mansion dinner with you!
Graveyard Jamboree Charcuterie
They’re assembling for a swinging wake.
To kick off our Haunted Mansion dinner, I made a charcuterie board inspired by the attraction’s lively graveyard scene.
I used three types of cheese to create the various tombstones as well as brie for the coffin. The rest of the board was filled with sliced salami, grapes, blackberries, and parsley (for a grassy effect).
Happy Haunts Pizza
Actually, we have 999 happy haunts here. But there’s room for 1,000. Any volunteers?
The main entrée for our Haunted Mansion themed dinner was our Happy Haunts Pizza. We are a pizza-loving family (what’s not to love?!), and I knew it would be simple to put a Haunted Mansion spin on the dish.
I served a pepperoni pizza topped with ghosts I made from sliced provolone cheese. They looked pretty cute!
I realize this is the third themed dinner in a row I included pizza on the menu (following Wizard of Oz and Nightmare Before Christmas), but the kids certainly haven’t complained!
Madame Leota’s Regions Beyond Soup
Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat, call in the spirits, wherever they’re at!
Madame Leota is easily the most recognizable character from the Haunted Mansion. She is seen holding a séance to call in the spirits, which causes the attraction to take an extra ghostly turn.
I knew I had to include Madame Leota somewhere on our dinner menu, but I really struggled with how I was going to pull it off. She’s a disembodied head floating in a giant crystal ball, after all!
After grappling with this question, I finally decided to make a purple potato soup with her image floating on the surface. I wanted the soup to be purple to emulate the mansion’s iconic purple wallpaper.
The idea to float her image on the soup came from our Nightmare Before Christmas Dinner. I was so happy with the skull design I created in our Worm’s Wort Soup, I decided to give the technique another go.
This was a pretty ambitious project for me, and I was nervous to attempt it. But I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
To make the purple potato soup, I used a recipe from Life is But a Dish. Once the soup was ready, I made Madame Leota’s face from a slice of cheese to melt on the surface. Then, I added her wild hair by drizzling crème fraiche around her face.
The final product wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned, but my encouraging husband said it looked great. So, I decided to embrace it. If my family is happy, then I’m happy!
Constance Hatchaway’s Wedding Cake
Till death do us part.
One of the creepiest scenes in the Haunted Mansion is the attic. There, Constance Hatchaway awaits wearing her wedding gown and wielding an axe. After a quick observation of the attic, it’s clear Constance has made a habit of marrying wealthy men who meet mysterious, untimely deaths.
To incorporate Constance into our Haunted Mansion dinner, I made little wedding cakes inspired by the Halloween treat offered in Walt Disney World.
Our mini wedding cakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I decorated them as closely as I could to the treat offered in the Parks with what we already had in our cupboards. Then, I topped them off with axe toppers. The kids immediately recognized the Haunted Mansion reference which made this momma proud!
I hope our Haunted Mansion themed dinner filled you with ghoulish delight and inspired you to throw your own swinging wake.
So, hurry back, and be sure to bring your death certificate. We’ve been dying to have you…
Looking for other Halloween-inspired dinners? Check out our Ghostbusters Dinner HERE and our Hocus Pocus Dinner HERE!
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