Ghoulish Graveyard Halloween Cake

With Halloween and All Souls' Day this week I made this Ghoulish Graveyard Halloween Cake. It was fun to make and would be great to bake and decorate with kids. It would also be perfect for a Halloween party.

The recipe for this cake is from BBC GoodFood and you can find it here. It is easy to make as it's just a basic chocolate sponge cake recipe made in a 20 x 30cm tin. The resultant sponge was light and tasty. Once cool, the whole cake is covered in chocolate buttercream. I put my cake on a rectangular cake board and then covered the board in buttercream too and put a black ribbon around the edge. Alternatively if you have an appropriately sized slate or granite board this would look good too, or you could cover your cake board in black sugarpaste.

The gravestone biscuit recipe is also included on the BBC website. They are made with soft light brown sugar and lots of golden syrup. You can cut your shapes out freehand or you can also cut them out in cardboard first and use this as a template. I used a cereal box to make my templates. To add the details I used royal icing piped with a size 2 nozzle.

To construct the cake you just need some Matchmakers, Oreo cookies and some Halloween jelly sweets. The jelly sweets are usually available in supermarkets and Haribo make good ones around Halloween time. The Matchmakers should be snapped at various lengths and then pushed into the buttercream around the edge of the cake. To make the soil on top whizz the Oreos in a food processor (or you can bash them with a rolling pin in a plastic bag), when it's a fairly fine crumb, sprinkle them on top.

Finally, push the gravestones gently into the cake and add the jelly sweets for a bit of colour and to complete the ghoulish graveyard look.

Chocolate, Red Wine and Blackberry Cupcakes

Blackberries are in abundance at this time of year and I always make sure that I head out to scour the hedgerows in order to ensure that my freezer is well stocked for the winter ahead. It was reported in the news that this year was a bumper year for blackberries due to favourable weather conditions.

This is an interesting cupcake recipe as it contains red wine!!! You can't really taste it but it does add a depth of flavour. The method in general is rather unusual and the mixture is quite runny but it did yield success. There are also blackberries baked into the batter which are lovely and soft after baking and they definitely make for a moist cupcake. This batch was second time lucky as the first time I made these cupcakes I got distracted and forgot to add the sugar and also accidentally used cream of tartar rather than bicarb of soda...bit of a disaster...whoops!

The buttercream is made using the normal method but it gets its colour and flavour from the addition of 6 tablespoons of blackberry puree. I've actually made two batches of these cupcakes now and it's interesting the difference in the colour of the icing both times, the first time it was a darker purple which must just be dependant on the batch of blackberries you use. Smooshing fruit into buttercream icing is a great way to add natural colour, I particularly like using raspberries for this.

I followed the recipe as it was but also found the second time I made these that the icing was quite loose, I therefore added quite a lot more icing sugar until a good piping consistency was reached. I then used a star nozzle to decorate the cupcakes.

I'm entering these cupcakes into this month's AlphaBakes challenge where the letter for October is 'C'. The challenge is hosted by Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and on alternate months by Caroline Makes. I'm sure Ros will be receiving a deluge of chocolate recipes!

Ingredients

175g butter
100g dark chocolate (72% or above - Peruvian is recommended)
300g plain flour
375g golden caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
200ml red wine
200-300g punnet blackberries

Buttercream

200g punnet blackberries (as above)
150g soft butter
300g icing sugar

Makes 12. Start by preheating the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4.

Place the butter and chocolate in a saucepan and melt gently on the hob until entirely melted and smooth. Meanwhile mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarb of soda with a pinch of salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl or jug whisk the eggs and wine together. Then add the chocolate and egg mixes to the dry ingredients along with 100ml boiling water and whisk until completely smooth with no lumps.

Divide the mixture between 12 large muffin cases. The mixture is quite runny so I used a ladle! Then place 2-3 blackberries on the top of each one. Bake for 35 minutes and then place on a wire rack to cool.

To make the buttercream whizz the remaining blackberries to a pulp and then sieve to give a smooth puree. Beat the butter until it is extremely soft and then add half the icing sugar and mix. Add around 6tbsp of the blackberry puree and the remaining icing sugar and beat together thoroughly. This is then ready to pipe onto the cooled cupcakes. You may also want additional blackberries to top each cupcake.

* Recipe adapted from Olive Magazine - October 2013

Chocolate & Coconut Bounty Cupcakes

I seem to have gone a bit crazy making cupcakes recently, I think it's since I purchased the new Hummingbird Bakery book, Home Sweet Home where you can find lots of different delicious recipes. I was talking to someone the other day who suggested making every single recipe from one cookery book as on average people usually make about 3 or 4 per book. I think the Hummingbird Bakery book could be a good one for carrying out this challenge as all the recipes look great!

I made these cupcakes specifically for a charity bake sale, along with some vanilla cupcakes and the Cherry Bakewell muffins that I made a few weeks ago. To make them, I made a chocolate batter using Green and Blacks Cocoa Powder. Once made the cases were filled to about two-thirds full and then about a third of a small Bounty bar was gently pushed down into each case as you can see above. The mixture covered the Bounty and the cakes were then put in to bake.

To finish the cakes I made a buttercream icing which also contained coconut milk. There is a technique to applying the icing to the cake with a palette knife to give it a professional swirl but I have to say, I have definitely not mastered the technique. However, the icing was lovely and creamy and it doesn't really matter if you don't master the swirl as the final touch was to sprinkle each cake with desiccated coconut, so you can't really see it anyway. Lastly, another third of a mini Bounty bar was added on top.

Not everyone is a fan of Bounty bars but for anyone who does like them or anyone who is a fan of chocolate and coconut, then these cupcakes are a real treat with the Bounty baked inside and the gorgeous creamy icing on top. They were well received at our cake sale and along with the other lovely ladies who baked we managed to raise 357 pounds for a local Women's Aid Shelter.

If you want to give these a go yourself, you can find the recipe in the Home Sweet Home recipe book, or alternatively, just push a piece of Bounty into your favourite chocolate cupcake batter before you bake it and then make a regular buttercream, adding some coconut milk, before finishing with desiccated coconut and a bit of Bounty on top.

Chocolate Brownie Meringue Cake for World Baking Day

Today is World Baking Day...last year it was 'Caking', this year it is Baking Brave. If you check out the World Baking Day website, you'll find 100 different recipe increasing in difficulty from 1 to 100. All you have to do is choose your level and then get baking!

My initial thought was to go straight to recipe 100 but then decided that it was probably actually better to pick something that I'd really enjoy baking and that other people would enjoy eating, so I plumped for level 91 which falls into the category of 'I bake, therefore I am!'. The recipe in question is a Chocolate Brownie Meringue Cake from World Baking Day Ambassador Miranda Gore-Brown who you may remember was a finalist on the Great British Bake Off. I chose this recipe as what's not to love about chocolate brownie, meringue, hazelnuts, raspberries and lashings of cream!

I'm not really a brownie aficionado but this was a really simple recipe to follow, it contains chocolate, icing sugar, margarine, eggs and flour. The brownie base was baked for 8 minutes before taking it out of the oven half cooked, at which point the hazelnut meringue was spread on top and it was then baked for a further 25 minutes.

Once the brownie and meringue was cooled the two halves were removed from their tins. In order to do this, a knife had to be run around the tin but this did give me a slightly scruffy finish. The final touch was to whip up some cream, icing sugar and raspberries to give the lovely pink layer in the middle.

I'm a bit of a baking perfectionist but I think for this one it is impossible to get a really smart finish, however the slightly dishevelled appearance is part of the charm of this cake I think! Cutting it neatly is also a bit of a challenge.

This is a lovely recipe which everyone will enjoy, it might be particular nice if you have friends with kids coming over for Sunday lunch for example. If you'd like to give it a whirl you can find Miranda's recipe here.

I'm entering this cake into this month's Calendar Cakes challenge as the theme this month is Baking Brave. So if you've baked anything for World Baking Day you can enter it here. We're also after any bakes that you have made in the month of May that are out of your comfort zone or particularly challenging and bear in mind that everyone's level of challenge is different, so whatever your own personal triumph, you're welcome to enter it into Calendar Cakes.

Calendar Cakes is hosted on alternate months here at Laura Loves Cakes and over at Dolly Bakes. You can find out the theme on the first of each month :-)

3D Chocolate Owl Cake

This 3D owl is such a cute little cake and it's perfect for a birthday or christening. It's pretty in pink for  a girl but the decorations work just as well in blue or any other colour that you might choose.

I made this cake on a course at Pretty Witty Cakes which is located in Crowborough, East Sussex. Pretty Witty Cakes offer a great range of courses with something for everyone from beginner to advanced. They also attract a number of international tutors. I was particularly keen to attend this owl course as it was a great opportunity to learn about 3D cakes as the 3D aspect really adds something extra special to a cake!

At the beginning of the day this owl started life as a stack of sqaure chocolate cakes which were ganached together and then carved into the shape of the owl. At one point the whole thing did look a bit like a transformer with bits of the carving stuck on at other points to give the shape...however, the tutor did warn us in advance and as predicted the finished carving eventually morphed into the owl...although my owl ears are a little too pointy!! :-)

Once carved the cake was covered in two thick layers of ganache before being covered in sugar paste, the covering was a little tricky as it was tough to lay it over the cake without tearing it on the ears. With the hard work done it was down to the decorating using a template for the wings and some cutters for the eyes, flowers and hearts. You may also just be able to make out the stitching outline on the wings above which was made with a stitching wheel.

The course tutor was Michelle Rea of Inspired by Michelle Cakes. Michelle is from Australia which is where she runs her business, but her classes are in demand internationally so she's currently in the UK for a few weeks, teaching a number of classes including this 3D owl cake. As the techniques for creating the owl were learnt on a course I can't go into too much detail about how to make the cake...but if you'd like to learn I'd definitely recommend attending a course with Michelle or at Pretty Witty Cakes.

Jaffa Cupcakes

I think I'm yet to meet anyone in life who doesn't like Jaffa Cakes...and as to whether Jaffas are a biscuit or a cake...in this case they're most definitely a cake. If you're interested, apparently the difference between a biscuit and a cake is that cakes go hard when they're stale and biscuits go soft! McVities claim that Jaffa Cakes are indeed cakes...the reason they are keen to define them as such is that you don't have to pay VAT on cakes!

I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery's new book 'Home Sweet Home'. It is a great recipe that I've used before and it gives a lovely soft and moist sponge. You can find the recipe here but this version is slightly different from the one in the new book. I've found previously with this recipe that the cakes actually taste better the next day after they're made.

As you can see from the pictures, the cupcakes also have a hidden centre. Once cooled, a little piece of cake was cored out from the centre of each cupcake and then filled with marmalade. I used Robertson's Golden Shredless and it really did taste like the centre of a jaffa cake!

As already mentioned the recipe for these Jaffa Cupcakes is from the new book by the Hummingbird Bakery 'Home Sweet Home'. If you'd like to know more about the book you can read my recent review here.

The icing is chocolate buttercream made with 450g icing sugar, 60g cocoa powder, 150g unsalted butter and 60ml of whole milk. All the ingredients bar the milk are mixed together until there are no large lumps of butter left and then the milk is added in gradually. This is a lovely light icing as there is comparatively less butter than usual and the milk loosens it up.

These cupcakes were easy to make and look cute with the mini Jaffa on top. They were also very tasty and I'd definitely make them again!

I'm entering my Jaffa Cupcakes into this month's Tea Time Treats challenge which is hosted alternately by Kate from at What Kate Baked and Karen at Lavender and Lovage, this month it's Kate's turn. The theme for April is Fairy Cakes, Cupcakes and Muffins.

Chocolate & Ginger Tarts

Who can resist the lovely glossy lure of chocolate ganache! Combine it with pastry and preserved ginger and you've got a special treat. These lovely little tarts will earn you brownie points with your loved ones...or you could just save them all for yourself ;-)

The pastry was an interesting recipe containing flour, ground almonds, icing sugar, salt, unsalted butter, vanilla seeds and an egg yolk. Once baked it held together well and it was nice and light. The tart cases were blind baked with baking beans but if you don't have beans you can use rice. To more easily line each case with baking parchment, scrunch up the parchment before lining as this means it sits more easily inside the case.

 

I've used this muffin pan method before to make Mini Mississippi Mud Pies and it does give you nice little tarts but the effect is rather rustic...but this is an Edd Kimber recipe and Edd's tarts were rustic too!

Preserved Stem Ginger in Syrup is easy to find at the supermarket, I picked some up at Tescos. Each little tart has a secret cache of finely chopped ginger hidden at the bottom and chocolate and ginger are perfect partners.

The filling for the tarts is a classic chocolate ganache. The ganache included the addition of light brown muscovado sugar, this always gives a little bit of a fudgy taste and it also gives sweetness which cuts through the dark chocolate to provide balance. Once ready 40g of unsalted butter was added to the ganache, when mixed in this gives a lovely glossy finish.

The easiest way to fill the tart cases is to transfer the prepared ganache into a measuring jug and then pour the required amount into each one. The pastry recipe made 12 cases but mine were quite large so I only had enough ganache to fill 10 cases fully and I would have liked to have filled these 10 a little more!

To give an extra special finish to the tarts I used a little edible gold leaf on the top of each one. You can get edible gold leaf from most cake decorating shops or websites, mine came from Surbiton Sugarart.

You can buy it as a sheet or flaked in a little pot. It is reasonably expensive with the pot above costing £4.35 but it does add that extra sparkle to a special bake.

These tarts neatly fit into two baking challenges this month. The first is We Should Cocoa, with usual host Choclette from Choc Log Blog taking a break it's hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes this month. We Should Cocoa was co-created by Chele at Chocolate Teapot and the theme this month is 'Chocolate and Ginger'.

The second challenge is Classic French, again hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes. This challenge aims to help us tackle a different French classic each month, this month the theme is Chocolate Ganache...so again these fit in perfectly!

Ingredients

275g plain flour
25g ground almonds
50g icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
175g unsalted butter
1 large egg yolk
1-2 tbsp ice-cold water
1 vanilla pod (seeds)
4 pieces of preserved stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped

Chocolate Ganache

225g dark chocolate
185 ml double cream
45g light brown sugar or light brown muscovado
40g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Makes 12

Start by making the pastry and preheating the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4. The recipe suggests making this by hand...but I cheated and used a food processor...you could obviously do it either way. I put the flour, icing sugar, almonds and salt into the food processor and then added the cubed unsalted butter. Then whiz the mixture until it resembles rough breadcrumbs. At this stage add the egg yolk and ice-cold water and whiz again. The initial recipe suggested a tablespoon of water, however I found I needed two. Turn out the pastry on to the counter and then bring together by hand. Squash into a disc and then wrap in clingfilm before putting it into the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

Once the pastry is ready, take it out of the fridge adn leave to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Whilst it's resting, lightly grease a 12-hole muffin pan. Lightly dust your work surface with flour and then roll out the pastry to a thickness of 3-4mm (I used spacers). Using a 10cm circular cutter, cut out 12 discs of pastry, you may need to re-roll a couple of times. Put each disc into one of the holes in the muffin pan and press in gently. Then line each tart with baking parchment before filling each one with baking beans. If you don't have baking beans you can use rice.. Bake for 12-15 minutes, then remove the parchment and beans and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool in the pan before filling. Be gentle when removing from the muffin pan.

Finely chop the preserved ginger and sprinkle in the base of each tart. Next make the chocolate ganache by finely chopping up the chocolate and putting it in a bowl. Then put the double cream and light brown sugar in a small saucepan and heat on medium until just coming to the boil. Pour this cream mixture over the chocolate and leave for two minutes until gently stirring together. Add the butter and stir to combine, you should end up with a lovely glossy, silky ganache.

Finally, pour the ganache into each tart case, I used a jug for ease. Allow to set for one hour before serving. You can then add a little more chopped ginger on top and/or some edible gold leaf. This goes really well with whipped cream.

* Adapted from Edd Kimber's Say it With Cake.

Snowy Chocolate Cake Cottages

 

These cottages are really cute and so wintery and they're also a little festive with the wreaths and Christmas trees. 

These were a bit of a labour of love to make, they took a while especially the piping but I was really happy with the result. The first stage was to make a dense chocolate cake. The recipe specified a 6 inch square tin which I don't have so I used some foil backed parchement and tried to reduce the size of an 8 inch tin as you can see above...and it actually worked quite well. If you wanted to make something similar you could use any dense chocolate cake recipe.

Once baked and cooled the cake went in the fridge overnight to firm up so it was suitable for carving. The 6 inch tin produces four cottages.

I carved two types of roof on my cake for a bit of variation. This is also useful if you have different flavour cakes so you can tell which one is which. Another potential cake recipe for the cakes was spiced ginger cake.

Once the cottages were carved they were covered in marzipan to create a smooth base. A lovely chocolate ganache was then poured and spread over the top with a small cranked palette knife.

Warning, the next part will give you hand cramps! This was quite fine piping and I used royal icing in a piping bag with a 1.5 nozzle. I also used an angled turntable to pipe on the sides more easily. First up the roof tiles were piped and some were given extra icing to show a build up of snow. It doesn't matter if they're not perfect as the whole thing gets a dusting of icing sugar on top. Also add some icicles as a finishing touch.

Once the roof was complete it was on to the doors and windows. The snowmen were created by pressure piping a small circle for the head and a slightly larger circle beneath for the body.

Finally, some of the white icing was mixed up to create green, red and yellow for the wreaths, window decorations, Christmas trees and snowmen. The Christmas trees are 3D as the first layer was piped on by zig zagging from side to side with the lines gettting progressively longer to create the shape. When this was dry a slightly smaller zig zag was piped on top and then a final third layer. A star and Christmas decorations were then added to finish the trees off.

Lastly, royal icing was spread over the boards around the cottages and a ribbon added. I think these could even make cute Christmas presents next year! The idea is from the most recent Squires magazine and is by Ayako Saida.