Graveyard Cake (Halloween recipe)

Another easy Halloween themed dessert. This time, a cake.

The inspiration for this cake comes from the wonderful Donna Hay. The icing recipe is hers although I've used a family recipe for the chocolate cake.

CAKE - INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
125g butter, melted
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa, sifted (very important to sift)
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

CAKE - METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC (360ºF)
2. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 5 minutes
3. Place into a lined cake tin (I've used a square tin but the effect will work with any shape)
4. Bake for 50 minutes or until cake is coming away from the sides and cooked through when tested with a skewer
5. Let cool then remove from tin and leave on a wire rack to cool completely
6. When cool, cut off the top so that cake is flat. DO NOT THROW AWAY THE CUT-OFF as you'll be using this later

ICING - INGREDIENTS

125g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar OR icing mixture
1/4 cup cocoa, sifted (very important to sift)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

ICING - METHOD

1. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 6 minutes until pale and creamy
2. Add icing sugar/mixture, cocoa and vanilla and beat for another 10 minutes until light and fluffy
3. Cover the sides and top of the cooled cake with a liberal amount of icing, as this is going to hold the flake fence to the cake (you should have cut the top off the cake by now)

 FENCE

Use Cadbury Flakes to create a rustic looking border for your cake. I used all the same sized and spaced mine out (because I didn't buy enough to make a full border). Feel free to mix it up and make it more haphazard by buying different sized flakes.

 

DIRT

With the top you cut off your cake earlier, make crumbs by rolling sections between your palm. Do this into a bowl first to make sure there are no large lumps, then sprinkle the cake crumbs generously over the top of your iced cake.

TOMBSTONES

There are a number of ways you could make tombstones. I chose to use fondant icing because I had some left over from my castle cake. Very simple to do, just knead your dough, then roll it out until it's about 7mm thick. Using a paring knife (aka a small knife), cut out the shapes for your tombstones. Get some toothpicks and stick two carefully into each tombstone so you can later plant them into the cake. Using icing pens, write messages on your tombstones (or leave them blank if you want). Voila. Both fondant icing and icing pens were explained in my castle cake post.

Example of the toothpicks in the tombstones (I could not for the life of me make this the right way up. Sorry!!)

Other ways you could do this would be making the shapes out of chocolate, buying pre-made ones, or perhaps making crucifixes instead, out of paddle pop sticks or malt sticks.



There's still a few weeks until the big day so stay tuned for more Halloween ideas!

In the mean time, why not check out my previous Halloween inspired recipe for spooky jelly eyes.

Until next time.