This delicious autumn cocktail party menu can be used for Halloween, Samhain, Thanksgiving or any elegant, colorful fall get together! I’ll show you how to create pumpkin bouquets, the most beautiful (and easy!) cheese and charcuterie board, crudités, harvest-fresh appetizers, and seasonal sweets that will make your party guests SwoooOOOoooon!
I used this tasty, seasonal menu for my Samhain cocktail party this year! I made pumpkin bouquets using both dry and fresh flowers for decor, lots of little candles in cordial glasses, and set up a row of glassware for my guests to pour wine for any spirits they wanted to invite!
And the best part about this menu, was just about everything was created the day before, and simply assembled shortly before the party! Here’s how I did it!
I started with the mini pumpkin pies. They’re so incredibly simple to make! If you want the pie to gingersnap-crust ratio to be bigger (they’re about 1 to 1 in the recipe), just double the pie portion. The cook time will be exactly the same. I used a 1×1″ cookie cutter to cut them into perfect little squares.
I made fresh whipped cream a little earlier in the day, added a tiny bit of cornstarch to keep it firm, placed it in a pastry piping bag, then added the pretty little dollops of cream right before the party!
Next, I made the pesto zucchini rosettes. These require a real sharp apple slicer. I thought they looked so cute and witchy! I made them the day before, and put them in the refrigerator, then right before the party, I popped them in the oven at 300 F. for 8-10 minutes. They’ll get a little hard in the fridge, but heating them up brings back their puffy, crispiness!
Once the rosettes were done, I made the maple butternut squash appetizers. The recipe is for crostini that are about twice the size. I wanted them to be more bitesize for the party, so if you want to do the same for yours, simply use smaller bread bases, and make sure to chop your butternut squash nice and tiny so they’re not too big for the bread.
I made the butternut squash, mushroom and shallot topping the day before, then before the party, I gave the toasts a nice shmere of whipped goat cheese, and scooped the topping on. I also fried the little sage leaves a few hours earlier. You’ll want to make those day-of or they’ll lose their crispiness. You can make them a whole 4-5 hours earlier though, and place them on an (unrefrigerated) plate.
Once my appetizers were prepared, I prepped the parts of my cheeseboard. Again, I like to do just about all of this the day before so I don’t have to rush and stress out during the day of the party. You can find that great, long cheeseboard here!
I sliced all of the cheeses, made the salami and prosciutto roses, and choped apricots and walnuts, then stored them all in containers and popped them in the fridge. Then, about 30 minutes before the party, I simply placed everything where it belonged on the board and spent no more than 10 minutes assembling!
There is one thing that I prepare 100% on the day of the party, and that’s this precious flower box crudités. It takes less than 10 minutes to slice the veggies! I serve it with a simple tzatziki, and it adds such a lovely color!
On the morning of the party, I got the decorations ready. I used 1 big pumpkin, 2 medium pumpkins, and one somewhat small pumpkin to make bouquets for the table, but I went pretty overboard with ornamental pumpkins around them. I had about 16 other smaller ones! I used a mix of dry flowers from last year’s Christmas tree that I saved in a big basket.
I used a few small glass vases as well. I used a mix of roses, statice, lavender, cat tails, caspia, and a few billy balls here and there. I started by cutting the pumpkins, scooping them all out, then placing the flowers in and arranging until I liked what I saw. I arranged them on my table, and used one small wooden cake stand to give one of them a little hight.
Because this was a Samhain party, I made a pentacle out of Virginia creeper and placed that on the table, as well as number of different glasses that were just for spirits my guests wanted to invite.
In this Celtic tradition, we celebrate both our living friends and family, as well as those passed, and we doing by offering them a glass of wine that remains until the end of the party.
I tell my friends that they can drink the wine at the end of the party, or I will. I consider this wine to be blessed so I don’t let it go to waste (even if it’s a little stale after being out all night).
The glasses for my (living) guests are in the kitchen beside the drinks. I tied them all with charms – little pieces of old jewelry that I found at a flea market!
And that’s how I created my lovely autumn cocktail party!
For more inspiration, follow me on Instagram, on Pinterest, tiktok, and Facebook! And if you ever make any of my tasty drinks or treats, take a picture and tag me. I want to see!
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