Halloween Baking Recipes: Halloween slash cake and pumpkin and caramel cake

It's the spookiest night of the year, and what better way to celebrate than with delicious desserts that deliver on the scare and flavor with equal vigor. As the hour of Halloween dawns, carved pumpkins glow with an eerie light and the perfume of sweet treats fills up the streets, here's a collection of two sure-to-be-scary Halloween baking recipes that'll ensure you have a festive night to remember.

Halloween Slash Cake

This moist chocolate cake has a white icing covering that is serrated with knife marks with blood oozing out of the cuts.

Ingredients:

• 251 gm flour
• 202 gm sugar
• 103 gm cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 121 ml milk
• 3 eggs
• 102 gm butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• White frosting
• Red gel food coloring
• 200 gm store-bought buttercream frosting

Method:

1. First, preheat the oven to 180°C, and grease two round cake pans.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt with a fork, ensuring there are no lumps left inside.
3. In a separate bowl, you will whisk milk, eggs, and melted butter together.
4. You have to then mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, stirring continuously until you see that they are mixed well together.
5. Next, add vanilla extract, and stir again.
6. Then, divide this batter between prepared pans, and bake them for 25-30 minutes, till the cakes have developed a golden crust on top.
7. You need to wait and let the cool completely before frosting.
8. Now layer the cakes with buttercream, and cover the cake with white frosting.
9. Then, use a sharp knife to core the cake to make them look like gashes. Use red frosting in between the marks, using a few extra drops around the corners to intensify the look of the gashes. You can also use black frosting in the corners to make the cuts appear slightly older.

Pumpkin and Caramel Cake

Unlike the first recipe, this sweet dish is a moist and mouthwatering cake made with seasonal flavors of pumpkins and caramel.

Ingredients:

• 251 gm flour
• 202 gm sugar
• 103 gm pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 121 ml milk
• 3 eggs
• 101 gm butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Caramel sauce
• Store-bought buttercream frosting
• 1 tsp Pumpkin spice

Method:

1. You have to preheat the oven to 180°C, and simultaneously grease two round cake pans.
2. Then, mix flour, sugar, pumpkin puree, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, milk, eggs and the vanilla extract.
4. Then, incorporate the flour mix into the butter and egg concoction, and keep folding the ingredients together until it forms a dough.
5. Now, divide the batter evenly into the two prepared pans and bake them for 25-30 minutes.
6. Take them out of the oven and let them rest on a wire rack for at least another 30 minutes so that they come down to room temperature.
7. Add a few drops of vanilla and pumpkin spice to your store-bought buttercream frosting to layer the individual cake sheets. Once done, you can crumb coat the cake with some more frosting or leave it as is for a more rustic appearance.
8. Before serving, you must not forget to drizzle caramel sauce over the layers of the cake.

You can take your celebration a few notches higher by creating a spooky atmosphere at home, including dim lighting, decorations like fake spider webs, tissue papers as mummy fabric, props like skeletons, crystal balls, mechanical witches’ hands and spooky alarm bells.

As far as the rest of the menu is concerned, you could sprinkle edible glitter dust on any food items with black color to make them shiny but mysterious. To make things a little easier, prepare a large batch of cookie dough and then cut up cookies using different Halloween-shaped cookie cutters for bats, ghosts, or pumpkins.

Whatever you decide on, your table will be filled with people in awe of your creativity and ingenuity. With a spread that includes treats for both kids and adults, you're sure to be the star host this Halloween season.