Halloween is such a great time of year, its gives you the opportunity to get extra creative in the kitchen. This Halloween we decided to go all out with This Halloween Graveyard Cake. Its really fun to make and looks very effective. Stay tuned for more fun Halloween bakes this weekend!
Happy Halloween!
Cake Ingredients:
- 175g (6oz) margarine or softened butter
- 175g (6oz) caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 150g (5oz) self-raising flour, sifted
- 50g (1¾oz) of cocoa, sifted
- 1tsp baking powder
Icing Ingredients:
- 300g Icing sugar, sifted
- 100g Unsalted butter- at room temperature
- 40g Cocoa powder, sifted
- 40ml whole milk
Gingerbread Ingredients:
- 50g (120z) Plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
- 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp Ground ginger
- 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
- 125g (4.5 oz) Butter
- 175g (6oz) Light soft brown sugar
- 1 Free range egg
- 4tbsp Golden syrup
Decoration Ingredients:
- 4 Oreo’s
- Box of Quality Street Matchsticks
- Glace icing and piping bag
Method
1) Cream together the butter and the sugar until pale and fluffy. The longer you cream the better. Beat the eggs together and separately sift together the flour and cocoa. Slowly add the eggs to the butter and sugar with a teaspoon of flour if necessary to stop the mixture from curdling. Once the eggs have been added fold in the flour and cocoa and finally the baking powder. Pour into a lined square cake tin and cook in pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.
2) Leave the cake to cool whilst you make the gingerbread. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture clumps together. Tip the dough out, knead briefly until smooth, wrap in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
3) Roll out on a floured surface and cut out some gravestones and crosses. You don’t need a cutter you can do this free-hand with a knife. Place on a tray covered in grease proof paper and cook in the oven for 10-12 minutes.
4) To ice the cake, put all the ingredients for the icing into a mixer and whisk until all combined and fluffy. Cover the whole cake in the icing and then the decoration can begin!
5) Firstly whiz the Oreo’s in a blender to make into crumbs and sprinkle on top of the cake to look like soil. Make a small amount of glace icing and put into a piping bag then pipe the words etc on the tombstones and crosses. Then press the gingerbread into the soil as a scene. Finally break the matchsticks into random lengths and out all around the graveyard like a fence.
6) Hey presto you have a graveyard cake. If you want to add anything else to it get creative with it, maybe add some Haribo sweets creatures or chocolate spiders……..
