5 Halloween-Themed Cakes And Treats: Spooky But Delicious Dessert Ideas
Every year, on October 31, people come together to celebrate Halloween by donning elaborate costumes, transforming their homes with monster-themed decor, carving pumpkins, and of course, trick-or-treat—where people go door-to-door asking for candies.
Once primarily observed in Western countries, Halloween has now evolved into a global cultural phenomenon. In India, people celebrate Halloween with spooky desserts and beverages.
If you are organising a Halloween party this year, here are five desserts you can add to your menu so that your dessert spread stands out.
Spiderweb Chocolate Cake
This cake is a riff on the holiday favourite dark chocolate ganache cake. To make the Spiderweb Chocolate Cake, start with a moist chocolate cake as the base, and coat it with a layer of dark chocolate ganache. Refrigerate it overnight for the ganache to harden up.
Once the cake is frozen solid, add black food colouring to the chocolate ganache and brush another layer of ganache onto the cake, and refrigerate it again.
The spiderweb design is made using melted white chocolate or vanilla frosting. One needs to simply pipe the white chocolate in a spiral pattern on the top of the cake, and use a toothpick to gently drag lines from the centre outward, creating a web-like appearance.
For even more impact, place black edible candy spiders on a few of the lines.
Graveyard Cupcakes
These cupcakes can be made with any flavour of one's liking, because the sweet treat gets its name not from the ingredients used to make the cupcakes, but from its Halloween-specific decorations.
Begin with topping the cupcakes with a crown of chocolate frosting, then sprinkle crushed chocolate cookies on top to mimic soil or “dirt”. To make the gravestones, decorate rectangular cookies with grey-coloured icing, and stick gummy worms and bone-shaped candies to it.
Now, stick each cookie into the frosting upright, and secure it with a toothpick at the back.
Bloody Red Velvet Cake
This dessert is as visually dramatic as its name. It gets its deep crimson colour from red food colouring, and has a tangy cream cheese frosting in the middle to offset the sweetness from the cake.
Scale up this cake by dripping raspberry or strawberry sauce from the sides.
Decorate the top with Halloween accents like sugar knives or candy eyeballs to make it even spookier.
Mummy Cake Pops
This is an ideal party treat that one can prepare in bulk beforehand, wrap in individual decorative cellophane and arrange them in a wicker basket filled with other Halloween candy.
You can either use cake scraps from leftover cakes, or bake a dark chocolate cake from scratch, leave it to dry overnight in the refrigerator, and crumble it with a fork to make the base for the cake pops.
Then shape them into small balls, skewer them with a toothpick, and dip them into melted chocolate. Once the first layer of chocolate hardens, drizzle more chocolate onto the cake pops.
Witch Finger Cookies
These cookies are typically made by shaping butter cookie dough into elongated, finger-like forms, but it gets its realistic appearance from the almond that is pressed on one side of the cookie dough, which resembles a sharp fingernail.
To make them even more life-like, create knuckle marks using the back of a knife. Finish it off with a light dusting of cocoa powder and a few drops of red food colouring around the almond.
