Next to the Halloween sweets, I put a bowl of orange faces

On Halloween evening the doorbell rings every ten minutes and the bowl of sweets by the door empties faster than I can refill it. A few years ago I put a second bowl next to it, full of little orange faces, and to my surprise it emptied just as quickly.

It’s the easiest Halloween snack I know. I wash the clementines and dry them well, then draw on the peel with a food-safe pen: triangle eyes, a triangle nose, a zigzag mouth. The children argue over who draws the scariest one. The peel comes off before eating, so the face goes in the compost and the fruit stays clean and juicy inside.

Next to them I put banana ghosts: a banana cut in half across, peeled, with two raisins pressed in for eyes and one for the mouth. They’re made just before the plate goes out, because a peeled banana darkens within the hour. For the little ones I cut grapes lengthwise into quarters and keep whole nuts off the plate altogether.

The pen matters. I use an edible ink pen, the kind sold for decorating cakes and biscuits, not an ordinary felt tip or a permanent marker. Even though we peel the clementines, little fingers touch the peel and then the fruit, and ink from a craft pen is not something I want near food. I let the faces dry for a few minutes before they go in the bowl, so they don't smudge.

I wash the clementines under running water before drawing, because the peel has been handled in the shop and the children's hands will be all over it. Everyone washes their hands before we start too, and again before we eat.

The bananas are just as simple. I choose bananas that are ripe but still firm, with no brown patches, because soft ones won't stand up. Cut across the middle, each half stands on its flat end like a little ghost. If raisins are a problem for someone, chocolate chips work for the eyes, but then the ghosts are not quite so innocent.

A note for the youngest guests, and this one I take seriously. For children under five, whole grapes, cherry tomatoes and similar round foods are a choking risk, so I cut them lengthways into quarters. Whole nuts are not suitable for children under five at all. Raisins are small and chewy, so I keep an eye on toddlers and make sure they eat sitting down, not running round the room in a costume.

Allergies are the other thing I think about on Halloween. Children knock on the door with all sorts of allergies, and I can't know them. Fruit like this has no hidden ingredients, which is one reason the orange bowl is useful. For the shop sweets, I keep them in their wrappers with the ingredients list on the packet, so a parent can check for nuts, milk, egg or anything else. Loose sweets out of a big bag have no label to read, so I don't put those out for children I don't know.

The plate itself is quick to put together. Clementines in the middle, faces out, and the ghosts around the edge, so the first thing anyone sees at the door is a ring of little faces looking back at them.

At home, we sort the children's sweets together when they come back, check the wrappers are sealed, and keep them in a tin. A few after supper is part of the fun; a whole bag before bed is not.

The sweets don’t disappear from our house on Halloween, and I don’t try to make them. But the orange faces and ghosts go first, and the children are proud of them because they drew them themselves.