Halloween kitchen gadgets and party gear to help you slay this year's bash

This spirit board-inspired serving tray is the perfect vehicle for cupcake display, cookies or edible body parts (if you have a hard time choosing, you can buy a trio of brain, heart and severed hand molds, which gives a new meaning to the term finger food).

A cheese plate is always welcome and you can make one with a Halloween-theme that includes bright orange cheddar, purple-black fresh figs and grapes, bone-thin breadsticks, rosy folds of flesh (in the form of prosciutto and other charcuterie), olive eyeballs and ruby-red fruit compote. Then let guests spear their desired tidbits with these charming witchy broom picks.

If you make something more substantial -- say, butternut squash soup or a witches' brew of chili -- there's no better vessel to bring it out than in a pumpkin-shaped cocotte, whether in classic burnt orange or cauldron black. Even if you're not cooking, you can use it as a punch bowl (in which case, we're partial to this Smoking Swamp Halloween Punch recipe) or stock up on a few mini versions for serving, too.

Shots will go straight to your head -- twice if you pour them in these creepy novelty glass skulls. But serve flaming shots at your own risk.

If your plan is to treat your guests to some nice whiskey, cognac, vodka or rum there's no better place to decant it on all hallow's eve than this cool and spooky glass skull -- which kind of works all year round, to be honest. 

Maybe you've got more of a cocktail crew on your hands. Well then, consider these skeletal highball glasses for your vodka and blood orange juice screwdrivers. 

This big ol' glass skull is the perfect place to stash your pumpkin beers, hard seltzers or white wines over ice this season. You could also fill it with fun-sized candy or serve a blood-red punch. (Though you might have to do some lifting and angling to get those last few drops.)

Bake the haunted house of your darkest nightmares. Nordic Ware's haunted manor Bundt pan has a ten-cup volume, so it will feed plenty of your visiting vampires, zombies, ghouls and fiends. (But if you prefer a haunted castle, you can go with their turreted Bundt pan boasting plenty of walls and hollows to populate with a scene of edible evil creatures.) Either way, decorating is sure to be a scream.

Live your full Dia de los Muertos fantasy. And since the Mexican "Day of the Dead" directly overlaps with American Halloween in 2019, it's the perfect year to bust out this fun mold and decorate a few colorful Coco-inspired cookies.

Use your head. Nordic Ware's large skull cake pan makes a happy (hey, it's smiling) sight. If you'd rather serve small cakes than large ones, these small molds must be the skulls of shrunken heads. This lemon pound cake makes clean white skulls of either size. Add white food coloring to the mix and brighten the sweet-crumbed bones of the dead -- or coat them in a white chocolate glaze once the cake is cool. For extra terrifying Halloween greatness, use patches of icing to stick on cropped licorice strings for tattered hair.

To prove the skull's empty, display it next to a brain: Opaque pink Jello is ideal brain food, though if you want to keep it accurate (and somehow even more disgusting), go with something gray.