50 free Halloween Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Halloween food trivia quiz is about everything that gets baked, boiled, dipped, carved and handed out at the door between the last week of October and the Day of the Dead. It starts with the medieval spiced cakes that gave the world door-to-door begging for treats, moves through the fortune-telling loaves and mashes of Ireland and Scotland, the toffee and treacle of British bonfire nights, and the apples that get bobbed for, candied and caramelised because the harvest has just come in. Then it heads to America for the pumpkin, from pie and roasted seeds to the giant that broke the world record, and to the candy aisle: the polarising three-colour classic and the company that makes most of it, the peanut-butter cup that dominates the season, and the breakfast-cereal monsters that return every autumn. There are questions on Mexican breads and sugar skulls, the overseas cousins of souling, and the numbers behind America's Halloween spending. Easy questions suit a party round; the harder ones on dates, names and origins will test any host. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia entries, and each question shows its explanation and source after you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was candy corn originally called when it went on sale in the 1880s?
Chicken Feed
Confectioners aimed nature-shaped butter creams at a largely rural America; the Wunderle Candy Company made it first in 1888.
Q 02Which company is the largest candy corn maker, at roughly seven thousand million pieces a year?
Brach's
It holds roughly 85 percent of the candy-corn market each Halloween season.
Q 03Candy corn's yellow, orange and white bands are usually said to stand for what?
The fall harvest
The wide yellow end is meant to look like a kernel on the cob.
Q 04Which company, now called Jelly Belly, began making candy corn in 1898?
Goelitz Confectionery
It still makes candy corn today, though a rival dominates the market.
Q 05What are the spiced treats handed to door-to-door singers at Allhallowtide, ancestor of trick-or-treating, called?
Soul cakes
The recipients promised to pray for the souls of the givers' dead relatives; the custom survived in England until the 1930s.
Q 06In which country does the soul-cake custom continue as Pão-por-Deus?
Portugal
In the Philippines the same practice on All Hallows' Eve is called Pangangaluwa.
Q 07What is the traditional Irish Halloween fruit bread with charms baked inside called?
Barmbrack
Its Irish name means "speckled loaf", after the raisins, and finding the charm is meant to foretell marriage.
Q 08In the Irish fortune-telling loaf, finding which object meant you would marry within the year?
A ring
The other objects had their own meanings; a coin meant wealth and a pea meant no wedding.
Q 09Colcannon, another Irish dish in which Halloween charms were hidden, is mashed potato mixed with what?
Cabbage or kale
Its Irish name means "white-headed cabbage", and it is also eaten on Saint Patrick's Day.
Q 10In Scotland, bobbing for apples is known by what name?
Dooking
In Ireland and Newfoundland, "Snap Apple Night" is another name for Halloween itself.
Q 11Why do the apples float in the bobbing tub?
They are less dense than water
Players must use only their teeth, and hands are often tied behind the back to stop cheating.
Q 12Which Newark candy-maker is credited with inventing the red candy apple in 1908?
William W. Kolb
He was experimenting with red cinnamon candy for Christmas, dipped some apples and sold the first batch at 5 cents each.
Q 13What is the Commonwealth English name for the whole fruit dipped in a hard red sugar coating on a stick?
Toffee apple
They were first sold in London in the 1890s; caramel apples are made by a distinctly different process.
Q 21Pumpkin pie spice is generally a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and which other spice?
Cloves
Despite the name, the mix contains no pumpkin at all; allspice is sometimes added.
Q 22Which coffee chain launched the pumpkin spice latte nationally in autumn 2004?
Starbucks
By 2016 pumpkin-spice products were worth about $500 million a year.
Q 23The world's largest pumpkin pie, weighing well over a ton and a half, was baked in 2010 in which state?
Ohio
It used 2,796 eggs and 109 gallons of evaporated milk at the New Bremen Pumpkinfest.
Why did the Truman administration discourage pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving in 1947?
Q 14Hunter's Candy began selling caramel apples in 1936 in a town in which US state?
Idaho
Rolling them in chopped toppings turns them into taffy apples; tart Granny Smiths are the classic choice.
Q 15Candy apples stopped being handed out to trick-or-treaters largely because of rumours about what?
Razor blades hidden inside
Documented cases are extremely rare relative to the reporting and never caused serious injury, but the fear stuck.
Q 16Bonfire toffee, eaten at Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night in Britain, gets its strong flavour from what?
Black treacle
In Scotland it is called claggum, and in Wales loshin du.
Q 17In Scotland, what sticky treat is strung from the ceiling alongside the apple-bobbing tub at Halloween?
Treacle scones
Contestants must bite them without using their hands, with predictably messy results.
Q 18Before pumpkins, jack-o'-lanterns in Ireland and Britain were carved from which vegetable?
Turnips
Mangelwurzels and rutabagas were also hollowed out; Scottish guisers in 1895 carried scooped-out turnip lanterns door to door.
Q 19How much did the record-setting heaviest pumpkin of October 2023 weigh?
2,749 lb
Giant pumpkins are varieties of Cucurbita maxima; ordinary carving pumpkins weigh 6 to 18 pounds.
Q 20Roasted pumpkin seeds are known by what Spanish-derived name?
Pepitas
They flavour Mexican mole as pipián and a Yucatán salsa called sikil pak.
To ration eggs
The voluntary campaign aimed to free up food for foreign aid after the war.
Q 25Pan de muerto, baked in Mexico for the Day of the Dead, is usually decorated with dough shaped like what?
Bones
A baked teardrop often represents the goddess Chīmalmā's tears, and the domed top is said to stand for a grave.
Q 26Mexican sugar skulls made in moulds for the Day of the Dead are known as what?
Alfeñiques
They were originally gifts for children to eat, and the name of the deceased is often piped across the forehead.
Q 27In parts of Mexico, children ask '¿Me da mi calaverita?' — can you give me my little what?
Skull
The practice spread from the United States and Canada and mixes with Day of the Dead customs.
Q 28Which General Mills breakfast cereals, launched in 1971, return to shelves every Halloween season?
Count Chocula and Franken Berry
Boo Berry followed in 1972 as the first blueberry-flavoured cereal, and Carmella Creeper joined the line in 2023.
Q 29An early Franken Berry recipe had which alarming side effect in 1972?
It turned children's stool pink
An indigestible pigment was to blame, and the recipe was reformulated.
Q 30Which discontinued monster cereal turns up as a visual Easter egg in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs?
Fruit Brute
It vanished from shelves by 1982 but has since been revived under a new spelling.