Fun Halloween activities with your woodburner

With its flames, traditional links with home and family, and the ways of our ancestors, Halloween actually has quite a lot in common with wood-burning stoves once you look past the sweet treats and polyester outfits.

With Halloween 2020 set to be even more focused on the home than previous years, we thought we’d share some ideas for bringing your woodburner into the party.

Here are some fun Halloween activities that you can do with your woodburner.

Pumpkin soup

Why let all of that pumpkin go to waste when you’ve hollowed it out for carving? Turn it into a tasty, comforting pumpkin soup instead. If you’ve got a hotplate or the top of your woodburner is suitable for a saucepan to sit on, you could use your stove to make your autumnal supper. Here’s a BBC Good Food recipe for pumpkin soup.

Witch’s cauldron

It doesn’t have to be pumpkin soup that gets warmed on your woodburner. How about casting some magic spells? Some green food colouring, water and a selection of spooky ingredients of your choosing will turn your saucepan into a witch’s cauldron. Iggety, ziggety, zaggety, zoom!

Spooky shadows

Light your woodburner, turn off all the lights and use the light from the flames to have fun making some spooky shadows with your hands or some spooktacular props. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

Toasting marshmallows

If you’re Halloween sweet treats include marshmallows, why not serve them in style? Toast them using the flames from your woodburner for a tasty, sticky Halloween snack.

Halloween scents

Fill your home with seasonal aromas by placing a saucepan of water containing the scents you want on top of the stove. Pumpkin, cinnamon and orange are among the fragrances you might like to have wafting by your nostrils this Halloween.

What Halloween activities do you do with your woodburner? Leave a comment below with your ideas.

It goes without saying that while all these Halloween activities are fun for kids, any contact with the stove should be handled by an adult. Make sure you’ve also got a suitable fireguard in place if you’ve got hot saucepans on your stove.