|
 Autumn
is finally here and its time to fire up the oven and do a
little creative baking, and have we got the perfect cake for
you! With frosting as black as a moonless night and the
inside a deep blood red color, this terrific coffin shaped
Halloween cake is a wonderfully spooky and tasty treat.
Its
just the thing for any Halloween party, a vampire theme
night or just as a midnight snack. What else can we say
except.....Mmmm yummy!
 The only coffin shaped cake pan we could find is
one made by Pantastic.
These are special plastic
pans that you can use in a regular oven as long as
you don't exceed 375 degrees.
This coffin shaped
pan measures 7" x 13" x 1-3/4" and
makes a nice sized cake.
For the cake
mix we used Dunkin
Hines brand "Red Velvet" cake mix because of its deep red color.
Below are the instructions for using this cake mix in the
coffin pan. Preheat the oven to 325°.
 Grease
the pan's sides and bottom with cooking spray. Combine the
ingredients in a large mixing bowl: Red Velvet Cake Mix,
1-1/4 Cups Water, 1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil and 3 Large Eggs.
Blend on low speed for 30 seconds, then at medium speed for
another 2 minutes.
Pour the batter into the pan until it is
half full (you will not use all of the cake mix). Important
- Place the plastic coffin pan on
a shiny aluminum cookie
sheet
for baking. Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes.
 While
the cake is baking you can mix-up the black frosting. We used
Dunkin Hines
brand "Creamy Home-Style Classic Chocolate" frosting.
Its already a dark colored frosting, so requires very little
icing color.
First, spoon out the frosting from its original
container into a small mixing bowl. Add about a 1/4 teaspoon
of
Wilton brand
black "Icing Color"
to the frosting and stir thoroughly until it is well blended
and black as a Halloween night.
 Check
the cake after 30 minutes using the tooth pick test. The
cake is done when you can stick a tooth pick in its center
and it comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow
it to cool for fifteen minutes.
Use a cake top trimmer or
bread knife to trim the top of the cake off flat. Carefully
run a thin bladed knife around the inside of the cake pan to
separate the cake from the sides of the pan.
Release the cake by inverting it onto the serving
dish you wish to use.
 Using
a cake frosting spatula, carefully spread the black frosting
over the top and sides of the cake as evenly as possible.
Once you've frosted the cake you can use cotton swabs to
remove any frosting that smeared on the serving plate.
You
can serve the coffin cake as is or decorate it as we've
done. To make a bat decoration on the cake like we did, let the frosting
set for about an hour or two so that it won't stick to the
cookie cutter as much.
 Place a
large bat shaped cookie
cutter on top of the cake over the spot where you want the
figure of the bat to be
and press it into the frosting slightly.
Now, using a cotton swab, paint
the frosting inside of the cookie cutter with a thin
coating of vegetable oil for the sprinkles to stick to.
Carefully spoon in
just enough colored sugar sprinkles to cover the area inside, we used
red sprinkles. When you remove the
cookie cutter the figure of the bat is left behind.
 Another
option would be to use some edible Halloween cake
or cookie decorations to adorn the cake with. These are available at most grocery or craft
stores during the Halloween season.
Or, if you have the
skill you can make your own
Halloween themed decorations by piping different colored icing onto the cake
such as in the figure of a small wreath, a red rose, a
vampire bat, a skeleton, a spider, etc. But that is a more
advanced project.
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