Halloween is getting more and more popular in Europe. There are scary walking tours, amusement parks have Halloween themed days, the shop are filled to the brim with costumes, creepy accessories and tons of Halloween candy.

Our boys love Halloween. The creepier the better. Which means we happily go along with all that Halloween craziness. But we keep it fairly low key. Just a few accessories in the house, a little bit of candy and we might just go on ones of those scary walking tours.

Birthday

Our youngest celebrates his birthday in October and last year, he wanted his party and the birthday cake all Halloween themed. I happily obliged. The treats for his class mates were Halloween themed as well: orange pumpkin and white ghost cupcakes.

The rules for the school treats are quite strict. No chocolate, whipped or buttercream, no candy. Preferably fruit, cake, waffles or cookies. But we try to make it something special anyway. Hence the Halloween themed cupcakes (no frosting), our oldest brought personalised cookies.

This year’s birthday cake had to be a Pokémon cake. So that’s what we did. With edible Pokéballs on top.

Surprise inside

But what should we bring to school? That had to be Halloween treats again. Even though we’re not supposed to use whipped cream, chocolate or buttercream, no one said anything about using a little bit of colour. Inspired by the Surprise Inside Cakes by I Am Baker, I came up with this Halloween Surprise Inside Cake. It’s actually very easy to make, but the effect is huge: those eyes when you slice the cake and they see what’s inside. Priceless.

What do you need?

500 g unsalted butter

350 g sugar

7 eggs (L)

2 tsp vanilla extract

400 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

Extra: food colouring

What do you need to do?

Preheat oven to 170°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whip the butter with the sugar until creamy.

Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix well.

Add flour and baking powder and mix until just combined.

Take about 1/3 of the batter out and transfer to another bowl.

Add the desired colouring for the surprise inside and mix until you have an even colour.

Pour the batter on the prepared baking sheet and smooth out. You can simply pour it on the baking sheet (like I did with the orange one) of use a baking dish or a mold (like I did with the black one).

Bake ca. 10 minutes.

Take out of the oven and let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, grease a cake tin and/or line it with parchment paper.

If desired, you can colour the rest of the batter as well.

Once the sheet cake has cooled enough to handle, cut out the forms. I have used a bat cookie cutter of one cake and a pumpkin cookie cutter for the other cake. But you can use any shape you like.

Put a bit of batter in the bottom of the cake tin.

Now carefully place all cut out pieces in a straight line on the dough layer. Lightly press it down.

Fill up with the remaining batter.

Bake ca. 50-60 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool completely before slicing.

The funniest thing happened with the coloured batches for school. The surprise inside turned 180°, so the bats hung upside down. Well, they tasted great anyway and the kids? They LOVED it!

Enjoy and have a spooky Halloween!