Our vampire theme continues…this idea began with my old recipe for Roasted Roaches and Dracula’s creepy insect eating sidekick, Renfield. I thought it would be fun and a little bit gross to make a Renfield inspired insect appetizer to sink our teeth into. Renfield’s Roaches had a nice alliterative ring to it, but I remembered that Renfield ate flies and moths, specifically, he ate Death Head Moths in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So I used the same delicious, albeit creepy looking bacon wrapped dates recipe from Castellon’s Kitchen, but I gave them a little costume of their own by making wings and skull heads out of edible wafer paper to mimic a Death Head Moth.
These cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped dates are very rich so one moth will go a long way, so if you’re having a dinner party consider serving one for each guest for a daring first corpse along with a glass of red wine or a tasty martini. They’re the perfect blend of sweet and salty and savory in every bite. The wafer paper itself has no flavor, but it’s completely edible and the wings double as a sort of edible paper plate. Enjoy!
Death Head Moth Bites
Ingredients
- 12 dates, pitted
- 6 slices thin bacon cut in half and lengthwise into strips
- 1/4 cup bleu cheese
- 1/4 cup cream cheese
- wafer paper
- food color markers
- black luster powder
- small circle punch
Instructions
Heath Head Moths
- Create a simple drawing of a death head moth on a piece of paper to use as a template. Make sure to trace around one of the dates with pencil to represent the body of the moth and set the scale of your moth drawing. I drew the moth twice, one with its wings spread out and one with its wings tucked in for variation, but feel free to just use one.
- Place a sheet of wafer paper over your moth template, using a edible food color marker, trace over template. Color in any areas that you want. I left mine a bit monochromatic with a touch of red, but feel free to use any colors desired. Repeat until you have 12 moth wafer wrappers.
- Add black luster powder to the rest of the moth and cut out with scissors. Touch up edges with edible black marker.
- Use a small hole punch to punch out the skull from the moth wrapper and trim around skull if desired or leave as a circle.
Bacon Wrapped Dates
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small bowl, crumble bleu cheese into small pieces and then mix with cream cheese. Transfer cheese to a pastry bag with a large tip and pipe the cheese filling into pitted dates.
- Make sure to use thin cut bacon to ensure a snug fit on each date. Cut bacon strip lengthwise and in half and wrap around the date tightly, securing with a tooth pick as needed. Repeat until all dates are covered with bacon.
- Place bacon wrapped dates on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and then rotate and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool before removing toothpicks.
- To serve, arrange each bacon wrapped date on an edible moth wing wrapper and place the skull punch out on the top of the date, securing with a small dab of honey. Add additional black luster powder to the tops of the bacon and on the wings for a powdery look.
When I realised you did this amazing treat with dates and bacon my mind was blown away!
I’ll try to recreate them as beetles for my Egyptian-themed Halloween.
Your blog is such an inspiration, thank you so much for your work!! Following you already from Spain!
What a great idea Cristina! I’d love to see how they come out as well as your Egyptian themed Halloween! That sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.
Happy Halloween!
đź–¤Lori