Short & Sweet: Strawberry and chocolate Halloween cake

Strawberry and chocolate Halloween cake

As the weather has become colder, and the evenings have become darker we can defiantly tell Autumn is in full swing. However, this means that some of the best times of year are fast approaching, including Halloween.

I designed this cake on a bit of a whim when I was asked last minute to make my cousin a birthday cake at the beginning of September, but on reflection this would also make a great Halloween showstopper.

Strawberry and chocolate Halloween cake:

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 25-30 minutes
Serves: 20 people

Ingredients:

For the cake:

400g softened butter
400g caster sugar
8 free range medium eggs
400g self raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the buttercream/filling:

300g softened butter
600g icing sugar
1tsp milk
1 punnet of strawberries

Decoration:

Strawberries
200g melted chocolate (100g for the strawberries, 100g for piping)
Strawberry jam

Method:

Firstly, preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius, and line three nine inch cake tins with butter and baking paper.

Place the softened butter and caster sugar into a bowl and cream together until fully combined and of a creamy consistency and colour.

Next, add the eggs into the mixture one at a time, mixing well between each addition to prevent it from curdling and to incorporate enough air. However, if it does curdle don't worry, this won't affect the cake in any way! (even though some may argue against this) You can alternatively add a small amount of flour along with the eggs to prevent curdling.

Finally, sift in the flour and add the vanilla extract.

Place the mixture into the prepared tins and bake in the oven on the middle shelf for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to the touch.

Whilst the cake is cooking you can begin to make the buttercream and prepare the filling.

For the buttercream place the softened butter into a bowl and sift in the icing sugar. Mix slowly, and well until both ingredients are fully combined. If the icing is too stiff add a dash off milk to loosen the mixture until it is soft enough to pipe.

For the filling slice enough strawberries to fill the two layers. I also added strawberry jam to my filling. You can either use a shop bought one or use my jam recipe if you'd like to test your skills. I promise its super easy!

Melt 100g of your milk chocolate and dip your left over strawberries into this until they are fully coated. Leave to set at room temperature for about 1-2 hours.

Once the cake is cooked, place on a wire cooling rack to cool.
To assemble place one layer of cake onto a cake board or stand using a small amount of buttercream to secure it.
Next place a tablespoon of buttercream onto the base and smooth over. Place your sliced strawberries on top. On the bottom side of the next layer spread a tablespoon of strawberry jam. Repeat this step once more with the other two layers of cake.

To decorate place a tablespoon of buttercream onto the top of the cake and smooth over. Next, fill a piping bag (with a plain nozzle attached) with buttercream and pipe all the way round the outside of the cake, ensuring to overlap the top of the cake by roughly 0.5cm. To smooth over use a palette knife or a cake scraper at a 90 degree angle, rotating the cake slowly whilst applying light pressure until you are left with a thin layer of icing. This process is called crumb coating.
If this layer of icing isn't thick enough to cover the cakes, chill the fist layer for about half an hour and then repeat until it is of your desired thickness.
Drag the overlapping icing into the middle of the top of the cake to create neat edges.

Using a two piping bag fitted with small round nozzles and filled with strawberry jam and chocolate, carefully pipe around the edge of the cake, ensuring that you apply enough pressure so that they will each drip off the side of the cake.

Finally. using a piping bag fitted with a six point star nozzle (I use a Wilton 2D) pipe small swirls on top of the cake and place your chocolate covered strawberries on top.

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make this fun Halloween dripping cake, and you could get even more creative than I was and add many more Halloween related decorations.