Chocolaty, single-serving-sized, made-from-scratch Ghosts in the Graveyard Treats. These are a perfect Halloween dessert made with an easy no-bake chocolate cheesecake filling and Oreo Cookie crumbs! Top them off with cookie “tombstones” and whipped cream “ghosts”!
Hi everyone! I originally shared this recipe over a year ago, but with Halloween a mere 11 days away, I thought you might appreciate a semi-spooky Halloween dessert.
Honestly, I’ve hardly done any preparation for Halloween this year (aside from making these spider cookies last month). Our neighborhood is decorated with Jack o’Lanterns, spooky ghosts, and faux-spiderweb covered hedges, and all I have are three miniature pumpkins rotting outside our front window. Not exactly festive.
I thought that the very least I could do to try and get into the Halloween spirit was resurrect these Ghost in the Graveyard Halloween Dessert Shooters, a (non-alcoholic) chocolate cheesecake treat.
My mom used to make “Ghosts in the Graveyard” when I was a kid, but it was done a little differently. The classic dessert is made in a 13×9 pan (at least, it was in our house), the graveyard constructed of pudding and topped with cookie crumbs, cookie tombstones, and ghosts.
I remember planting the Milano cookies in the pudding and then strategically carving out my slice of the “graveyard” so that I got both tombstone and ghost.
Given my affinity for mini desserts, and especially for dessert shooters, I individualized the dessert into adorable single-serving-sized portions.
I made these treats from scratch mimicking the same chocolate filling that I used for my sister’s birthday cookie dough pie, only using a heavier portion of chocolate and stirring in crumbled Oreos for a “dirtier” look.
It may seem like a lot of steps because you have to melt the chocolate separately, wait for it to cool, and whip the heavy cream at two different points, but it’s really pretty simple for a from-scratch Halloween dessert.
It’s worth every extra dish, but I also included notes in case you wanted to speed things up a bit and substitute Cool Whip (I’ve done this a time or two myself, but it’s definitely worth the extra effort to make from scratch!!).
Enjoy (and try not to look to closely at my ghosts in the background, they are sad specimen indeed)!
Full recipe just below the video.
Looking for another Halloween Dessert? Check out my adorable Spooky Spider Cookies!
Ghosts in the Graveyard Halloween Dessert Shooters
Ingredients
Filling
- 1 cup chocolate chips 175g
- 2 cups heavy cream divided (474 ml)
- 8 oz cream cheese softened (227g)
- 28 Oreo Cookies pulverized in food processor
- 1 cup powdered sugar 200g
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whipped Cream Ghosts**
- 1 cup heavy cream (237ml)
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar (150g)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Other optional toppings
- 12 Milano sandwich cookies
- 1 tube Black premade frosting for writing
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the heavy cream over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until chocolate chips are completely melted and mixture is smooth.
- Remove from heat and pour into a heatproof bowl. Stir in vanilla extract.
- Allow mixture to cool completely before continuing.
- In a clean, medium-sized bowl, use an electric mixer to beat remaining 1 1/2 cups heavy cream to stiff peaks. Set aside.
- In bowl of stand mixer, combine cream cheese and (cooled) chocolate mixture, stirring until completely combined.
- Gradually add powdered sugar until completely combined. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed.
- Stir in vanilla extract and 1 1/2 cups of the Oreo crumbs (reserve remaining crumbs to sprinkle over tops of shooters).
- Fold in whipped cream and then stir on low-speed until completely combined.
- Set out 24 disposable shot glasses.
- Pour mixture into large Ziploc bag, snip off one corner and pipe filling into shot glasses, filling about 3/4 full.
- Cover tops of each shooter with remaining Oreo crumbs.
- Prepare Milano cookies buy using black frosting to write "RIP" on upper half of cookie.
- Press Milano cookies firmly into half of the shooters so that only the half of the cookie reading "RIP" is protruding (like tombstones).
Ghosts
- Prepare whipped cream ghosts by combining heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla in clean medium-sized bowl and whisking until stiff peaks form. (You may instead skip this step and use Cool Whip).
- Pour whipped cream (or Cool Whip)into large piping bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe ghost-shaped swirls on top of the remaininghalf of dessert shooters.
- Use black frosting to gently draw eyes and mouths on ghosts
- Serve & enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
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I originally posted this recipe 10/3/16, updated text and re-published 10/20/17
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Taryn says
Hi, um what kind of chocolate chips does this call for? Semi-sweet?
Sam says
Yup!
Taryn says
Thanks! Also, for the Oreo cookies, do you pulverize 28 whole cookies with the cream or 28 of the half without the cream?
Amy says
Hi
Where do you get those purple flowers and orange little pumpkins? Are they real or fake?
Sam says
The pumpkins were edible icing candies from my local cake shop, you could easily substitute those little mallow-creme mushrooms that come mixed in with candy corn. The flowers were real flowers, but they were mostly for decoration and I wasn’t sure if they were edible so I scraped them off before serving. I hope that helps!!
Samantha says
Did your whipping cream melt while they sat? I’m nervous that when I makes this that they melt.
Sam says
How long do you intend to leave them sit out? My whipped cream has never melted, but I know not everyone has been so lucky and if you are worried about it you could try using Cool Whip, which may be more stable.
Felicia says
I am going to make these for a work party. If I make them the day before will the be ok to store in the refrigerator over night? And will they be ok to set out all day for my co workers?
Sam says
They will be fine made the day before! They’ll also be OK to sit out for even a few hours, but because of the dairy in them I wouldn’t recommend leaving them out all day, not more than a few hours.
Felicia says
Awesome thanks! I have another question, what do you think about putting this in a large cake pan and just letting people scoop it out themselves? Would that also work?
Sam says
I think that would work just fine! It would be a bit messier with serving, but still tasty, and would look even more like a “graveyard” 🙂
Taryn says
Do I pulverize the cookies with the cream? Or do I need to take the icing between the Oreos off?