Vamp Attack Halloween Cake

It's Halloween time! I thought a vampire themed cake would be fitting this year as I spent most of my spare time reading vampire stories when I should have been writing blog posts. Its started with the Sookie Stackhouse (SVM/True Blood) books, then when the ending of those was an epic disappointment I moved on to fan fiction.

I've never been one to read fan fiction before, but after stumbling upon Bored to Death from ericizmine I'm hooked. Her stories, the multi-verse, are so intricate and well written that I've read each of them a number of times and am hanging out for new updates.

Getting back to Vamp attack cake. I made a red velvet cake figuring the deep red colour is nice and vampy and perfect for Halloween. The filling added to the look in all its raspberry deliciousness oozy gruesomeness. But the best part about the vamp attack cake? Its pretty simple to decorate.

The vampire bites were made easy thanks a set of plastic costume teeth, you know the ones that make you look like your wearing a mouth guard rather than having fangs. Who knew they'd have other uses than looking dorky, pressing the fake fangs into the outer fondant layer of the cake leaves a prefect bite mark. A bit of red makes the bites stand out against the stark white of the cake, giving you a yummy Halloween centrepiece.

Vamp Attack Cake (printable recipe)
600 grams white fondant
plastic vampire fangs

Raspberry Filling
2 cup fresh or thawed raspberries
6 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice

To make the filling- Combine the raspberries, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Cook, until the raspberries begin to break apart and lose their juices.

Press the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the majority of the pips, return the strained mixture to the pan, Stir, and cook until the filling boils and thickens (about 5 minutes). Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. While the filling is cooling make the cakes.

Put 2 tablespoons of the filling aside to make the fake blood for the outside of the cake.

Red Velvet Cake
3 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
170 grams butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tablespoons red food colouring
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

To make the cake- Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease and lightly flour two 8 inch cake pans, line the bottoms with baking paper circles and lightly flour the sides.

Add the butter and sugar to your mixer bowl, beat on medium until very light and fluffy, it will take a few minutes.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition.

Stir the red food colouring, cocoa, and vanilla in a small bowl to form a paste . Add the red paste to the batter and mix well, evenly dispersing the colour.

Mix the salt into the buttermilk. Add a third of the buttermilk and a third of the flour to the batter, beat until just incorporated (do not over beat). Repeat with the remaining thirds.

Stir the vinegar and baking soda in a small bowl. Add to the batter and mix well.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl making sure all the ingredients are evenly mixed and the batter is smooth.

Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 1 hour. Gently remove the cakes from the tins and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. While the cakes are cooling make the vanilla frosting.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
200 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of milk (if necessary)

To make the frosting- Beat butter with mixer on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Switch the speed to low-medium so you don't end up in a cloud of sugar. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the side with a spatula. Add the vanilla and beat frosting on high for about 3 minutes, it will get very pale and be light and airy. If the frosting is too thick beat in a little milk.

Raspberry Chocolate 'Blood' Sauce
2 tablespoons raspberry filling
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon red food colouring
1 teaspoon chocolate syrup

To make the fake blood- Strain the raspberry filling to make sure there are not leftover seeds. Add all ingredients to a small bowl and mix well . The Chocolate syrup will give the fake blood a bit more realistic colour.

To Assemble the cake- trim the raised tops off each of the cakes. Cut each of the cakes into 2 even layers. ( I finally bought a cake cutting wire, its the best thing ever people! If you don't have one I'd really recommend it, even layers every time!)

Spoon roughly 1/2 of a cup of the vanilla frosting into a piping bag. Place bottom layer of cake onto plate. Pipe a ring of frosting around the edge of the cake to stop the raspberry filling escaping.

Spoon in a third for the raspberry frosting and smooth over. Top with the next layer of cake and repeat the piping and filling, finishing with the top layer of cake.

Spread a thin crumb coat of vanilla frosting over the entire cake.

Spoon on the remaining frosting and spread in a thicker smooth layer over the entire cake.

Dust your work surface (I use a silicone mat) with a little cornflour and roll out the fondant to roughly 7mm thickness. 

Drape the rolled fondant over the cake. Smooth the fondant over the cake, starting at the top then working down the sides. Pull the fondant away from the cake sides as necessary to avoid creases forming.

Run the fondant smoothers over the top and around the sides to get a nice flat Finish. 

Trim the excess fondant from the base of the cake with a sharp knife.

Now for the fun part. Press fang marks all over the cake using the plastic teeth.

Spoon some of the raspberry chocolate 'blood' into a small squeesy bottle. Fill each of the teeth marks with a little fake blood. Add drips and puddles where you like.

To make the spray splatter look, start by placing the cake on top of newspaper to ensure you do not make a mess. Make sure you cover the wall behind too.

Empty most of the remaining raspberry chocolate sauce from the squeezy bottle.The little bit of sauce left the the bottle should squeeze out in a splatter. The less sauce in the bottle the finer the spray with be. Go crazy and cover the cake as much as you like.

Have A fantastic Halloween Weekend!!

Happy Halloween 2012!

Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone has a fantastic frightening day. On my to do list today - pick up  more candy just in case we get trick or treaters, the other stuff has already been eaten!

There's not really anything new in this post except for my jack o'lantern, which I am rather pleased with! Isn't he creepy!!

If you still haven't had enough of all things Halloween I've included a round up of this years posts as well as a few favourites from last year.

Candy Corn Cake

Spider Web Tarts

Haunted House Treat Boxes

Zombie Graveyard Cake

Skeleton Sugar Cookies

I didn't get to share these guys but I think you get the idea. They are very simple to make, just knead a little black food colour into your favourite sugar cookie recipe and bake a normal. Draw on a skeleton in some plain white royal icing and they you have them, skeleton cookies. I was able to cheat following the skeleton imprint made by the cute Gingerdead man cookie cutter given to me by boyfriends sister.

 Light Up Jack'o'lantern Cookies

 Poison (Candy) Apples

Zombie Graveyard Cake

October has gone way too fast!! There were so many more ideas I wanted to try before Halloween, but I am thankful I at least got to share this one because it is my favourite!

Zombie movies have always topped my fav scary film list and funny zombie movies are even better. Now I'm not talking the terrifying run really fast rage zombies, I like my undead slow, stumbling and searching for brains. Think Return of the Living Dead, which I watched again last weekend and laughed my butt off the whole way through! In fact it was the inspiration behind this cake.

Ever since I made the hearts inside valentines cake last year I've been wanting to use this technique again and what could be more fitting for Halloween then a graveyard cake bursting with zombies! Make it past the undead crawling out the top, slice into the cake and you'll find a surprise! Its full of bones (cake bones that is).

Making the cake isn't very difficult and if you often have cake off cuts like I do its a great way to us them up. If you don't have any spare off cuts it's as simple as baking a quick square of vanilla cake cutting out your bone shapes and baking them again inside your chocolate cake. Go as simple or as fancy as you like with the decorations as the real surprise is on the inside. I used chocolate fingers for the fence around the outside and crushed Oreos make a fantastically realistic graveyard dirt on top.

For the zombie graveyard cake you'll need-
Pre-baked white cake- I used half of my favourite vanilla cake recipe.
Chocolate Cake mixture (recipe at end of post)
Chocolate buttercream (recipe at end of post)
1 packet chocolate biscuit fingers
1 packet Oreos (cream filling removed and cookies crushed)
Small amount of green, orange and grey fondant

Making the fondant toppers
To make the zombie arm roll out a small length of light green fondant and slightly flatten one end. Cut off the other end and gently insert a toothpick about halfway up the arm.

Cut four slices into the flattened fondant to form a hand, add on small details like finger nails and cuts and scrapes with a toothpick . Curve the fingers over something round and leave to dry out.

Brush the fondant hands with some cocoa and red luster dust for that real zombie skin look.

To make the Pumpkin, roll a small amount of orange fondant into a ball and press down in the center to flatten slightly.

With a toothpick or lining tool draw on the ridges on the side of the pumpkin. Add a little stem to the top.

 Cut some little gravestone shapes out of grey fondant and insert a toothpick into the base of each.

Making the Graveyard Cake

Cut bones out of white cake with a cookie cutter.

Arrange bones inside your prepared cake tin.

 Scoop chocolate cake mixture over the top of the cake bones and spread evenly.

Bake cake according to recipe. 

Once the cake has cooled transfer to plate or cake board.

Spread a the top and sides of the cake with the chocolate buttercream, it doesn't need to be super neat as its covered up anyway.

Trim some of the chocolate fingers to different lengths to make the fence. Press the chocolate fingers around the outside of the cake.

Spread a layer of Oreo dirt over the top of the cake. If you like you can add some more Oreo dirt around the base of the cake, use some leftover chocolate frosting to stick it down.

Arrange the zombie hands and tombstones on the top of the cake.

Enjoy!!

Easy Chocolate Cake
125 grams butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3/4 cup milk

• Grease 6 inch round cake pan and line the base with baking paper.
• Add butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla to bowl of electric mixer, beat until combined.
• Add the flours, cocoa and the milk and beat on medium speed until smooth and lighter in colour.
• Spread into prepared pan and bake for around 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer into the middle comes out clean.
• Remove cake from oven, allow to cool 5 minutes before tuning out onto a wire rack. Cool top side up.

Chocolate Buttercream
90 grams butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons dark cocoa
2-3 tablespoons milk

• Beat the butter with mixer until light and fluffy.
• Add the icing sugar, cocoa and milk, beat until the icing is smooth and spreadable.

Haunted House Gift Boxes

I was browsing through the Halloween bits and pieces at a craft shop last week and picked up these really cute felt stickers in the shapes of ghosts and pumpkins  After a bit of thinking about how to use them I came up with this fun idea. I'm sure a lot of people will be giving away treats this halloween, or maybe tricks if they're a bit nasty, so why not package them up in a cute haunted house gift box.

The idea is taken from these Gingerbread House Treat Boxes I made for christmas last year. With a change of colour and some different decorations they make a perfect place to hide your spooky sweets this Halloween.

I've included the templates and a quick set of instructions, for the full step by step guide check out my Gingerbread House Treat Box instructions.

You'll need-

Grey card

Dark purple card

Light purple card

Scissors

Wavy scissors

Double sided tape

Felt stickers, Ghost and Pumpkins

Black felt tip pen 

To make the treat boxes- Print out both templates (they should be A4 size) and cut out the shapes.

Box Template

Roof Template

Lay the box template on the grey card and trace around the edges.

Cut out around the outline. Fold along the dotted lines.

Lay the roof template on the dark purple card and trace on the guidelines. Using the line as a guide cut around the outside edge with your wavy scissors. Use regular straight scissors to cut out the little bits in the middle. Fold along the fold lines. 

 To assemble the box attach some double sided tape to the inside edges of the front and back of the box. Stick the side tabs to the insides of the front and back of the box using the double sided tape.

For the roof use some double sided tape to secure the roof together in the middle.

Cut a 2cm by 6cm(approx) zigzag shape out of light purple card for the chimney. Make a 2cm long cut in the middle of one side of the roof, push the chimney rectangle through the cut so about 2cm of it sits inside the roof. Cut up the middle of the chimney that sits inside the roof and fold tabs in either direction. Fix inside the roof with double sided tape. Cut a door shape out of the light purple card and fix the front of the house with double sided tape.

Stick on a pumpkin and a ghost and tie with a ribbon.