Bloody Halloween Cake!
A delicious vanilla and chocolate bloody halloween cake – with
sugary glass shards, a red ganache bloody drip, and more scarily delicious
treats!
Halloween baking
So… can I comfortably say this bloody
Halloween cake is halloween enough?! It is definitely a ‘scary’ bake in my
eyes, with shards of glass (sweets), blood (red ganache), and a bloody
buttercream frosting (red vanilla buttercream) inside, with a deliciously
spooky dirt cake (chocolate sponge).
Yes I know, in reality it does just
sound quite tasty… and it really was! I am a little proud of it I won’t lie. I
had far too much fun making this bake, and I just wanted to enjoy a little
spookiness in my kitchen.
What I hadn’t planned though?!
Getting red ganache on the ceiling of my kitchen. Yeah, make sure if you flick
the ‘blood’ onto the bake like I did, that you do it with more care and
attention, and not whilst singing very loudly along to the radio. Oops.
Bloody Halloween cake
But anyway… the bake. I wanted to do
something relatively simple, so standard bakes are involved. A basic chocolate
Victoria sponge style bake, a vanilla buttercream frosting, and ganache! This
bake is to show simple recipes can create something really fun!
I used a chocolate cake, as I had
already made it. You can of course colour this red, or even make it into a red
velvet sponge like in my spooky spider web cake if you preferred. I however,
just love chocolate cake!
Buttercream and colouring
I
did a simple buttercream frosting for the insides of the bloody Halloween cake,
as well as the outside. I made the inside buttercream red by using this strong red food colouring, and then coloured the
rest of the buttercream white using this white food colouring.
I wanted the contrasting colours to
really pop for his cake and it is everything I wanted it to look like! I really
do recommend investing in the better food colouring – some supermarket colours
don’t work as well and the better colours really are an investment. Mine last
good while and being in mind how much I use them, its good going!
White buttercream
You can however make buttercream
naturally whiter in colour, by just mixing the butter like crazy. I beat the
room temperature unsalted block butter (not a spread of any sort!) on it’s own
for about five minutes. This makes it super supple, and lightens the colour
naturally!
Adding the icing sugar in, and
beating again for about five minutes creates the perfect buttercream. Filling
this bloody Halloween cake requires a couple of tablespoons per layer, and then
the rest of the cake is covered in white. All optional of course, but it fit
the theme of the bake perfectly in my eyes.
I
use a large metal scraper to create the crisp white
outside edge of the cake – and a turntable. These tools are a must to get the best
affect on the bake! You can smooth it around to perfection. Top tip though, you
can run the metal scraper under the hot tap for a while, dry it off quickly,
and then smooth around the cake one more time to get the best finish.
Glass shards
For the smashed glass… I used clear
sweets! These were a tad harder to find in my local supermarkets as I thought
they may be… why is there a shortage?! But in the end, clear mint sweets won. I
didn’t want to use coloured hard sweets as I wanted it to look as ‘smashed
glass’ like as possible.
It may sound a weird to those of you
who have never done this method before – but you honestly just get the solid
clear sweets, crush them (I used a pestle and mortar) and sprinkle them onto a
lined baking tray – making sure it’s an even coverage of crushed sweet. Then,
in the oven for 5 minutes until melted, and leave it to cool.
I
used the end of a rolling pin to very lightly tap in the middle
of the hardened melted sweets, and it created the shards! Obviously though,
these can actually be quite sharp… so be careful guys!
Blood ganache
For
the ‘blood’ I used white chocolate ganache, which I coloured red. I used the
same red food colouring that I used in the
buttercream earlier on which made it much easier. If you find your ganache is a
little thick, add a smidge more double cream.
I carefully piped some of the red
ganache onto the bloody halloween cake around where the glass was inserted in –
and then carefully dripped it down the side of the cake – I then got a pastry
brush, added a little red ganache, and flicked the end until it left ‘splatter’
marks.
Decoration
All of this decoration is completely
optional, but I love it – I had so much fun with this bake, and if you have a
go, I hope you do too! I found it was the perfect Halloween centrepiece.
You can switch up colours on your
decoration or buttercream if you would prefer – maybe even a different coloured
ganache. The choice is yours! Any questions, leave them in the comments below.
Jane x
Bloody
Halloween Cake!
A delicious vanilla and chocolate bloody halloween cake – with
sugary glass shards, a red ganache bloody drip, and more scarily delicious
treats!
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Category: Cakes
Type: Halloween
Keyword: Halloween
Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour hour
Decorating Time: 3 hours hours
Total Time: 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes
Servings: 18 People
Author: Jane’s Patisserie
Ingredients
Cake
·
500 g unsalted
butter
·
500 g light brown
soft sugar
·
9-10 medium eggs
·
400 g self raising
flour
·
100 g cocoa powder
·
1 tsp vanilla
extract
Buttercream
·
500 g unsalted
butter (room temp)
·
1000 g icing sugar
·
1 tsp vanilla
extract
·
1/2 tsp red food colouring
·
1 tsp white food
colouring
Ganache
·
150 g white chocolate
·
50 ml double cream
·
1 tsp red food colouring
Decoration
·
150 g clear hard
sweets
Grams – Ounces
Instructions
Cake
·
Preheat your oven to
170ºC/150ºC fan, and line two 8″/20cm cake tins with baking parchment.
·
In a stand mixer, or a
large bowl, beat together the unsalted butter and light brown soft sugar until
light and fluffy.
·
Add in the eggs, self
raising flour, cocoa powder and vanilla extract and beat again until combined
well.
·
Split the mixture
between the two tins.
·
Bake the cakes in the
oven for 50-60 minutes, or until baked through – check with a skewer to make
sure they’re done!
·
Leave the cakes to cool
in the tins for 10 minutes, and then take out and leave to cool fully on a wire
rack!
Buttercream
·
Beat the unsalted butter
on its own for five minutes, to soften it and loosen it.
·
Add in the icing sugar
and vanilla extract and beat well until smooth and fluffy.
·
Remove 400g of the
buttercream, and colour this using a red food colouring to a deep red colour.
·
If needed, colour the
rest of the buttercream with the white food colouring.
Decorationg
·
Split the two cakes into
four layers in total.
·
Put the first cake onto
a cake board of plate. Add a third of the red buttercream and spread. Repeat
with the second and third sponges. Add the final sponge on top.
·
Using a small amount of
the white buttercream, spread and smooth around the cake sides and top for a
crumb coat and add to the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
·
Once set, add more
buttercream onto the tops and sides of the cake, and smooth around covering the
cake completely in buttercream.
·
I add the buttercream on
using a small angled spatula, and smoothed around the edge with the large metal
scraper! You need to make sure there is more buttercream on the sides of the
cake than you need, as some will be removed as you smooth it over.
·
Once finished, put the
cake in the fridge again for at least 30 minutes.
·
Whilst the cake is
chilling, heat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan, and line a large tray with
parchment paper.
·
Carefully crush the
clear sweets to a fine crumb, and pour onto the lined tray in an even spread –
and place in the oven for 5 minutes.
·
Once the sweets have
melted, remove the tray from the oven and leave to cool whilst the cake is
setting in the fridge.
·
Once the ‘glass’ is
solid, break carefully into shards (I tapped it with the end of a rolling pin).
·
Remove the cake from the
fridge and carefully insert the shards randomly, like you see in the photos.
Ganache
·
Add the white chocolate
and double cream to a bowl or jug, and microwave until smooth. I do short 10-20
second bursts, stiring well each time.
·
Once melted, add the
food colouring.
·
Using a small piping bag
or a teaspoon, drip the ganache near the shards of the glass, and down the
sides of the cake. The more you push over the edge, the further the drip will
fall.
·
Carefully ‘splatter’ the
blood coloured ganache using a pastry brush and flicking it towards the cake…
this bit can be messy.
·
Set the cake in the fridge
again for 30 minutes, and then enjoy.
Notes
·
This cake lasts for 3-4
days at room temperature!
·
For this cake I used:
o
I used two of these 8″ cake tins
o
These piping bags for the drip
o
This cake turntable to make decoration easier
o
I used this red food colouring
o
I used this white food
colouring
o
I used this metal scraper
·
You can use half of the
recipe to make a two-layer cake – half the sponge recipe, and half the
buttercream!
·
You can use any solid
clear sweet, I used mint ones I found.
ENJOY!
Find my other Recipes on
my Recipes Page!
