Bleeding Ghoulies

While the cool kids were out trick-or-treating this past Saturday night, I was holed up in my kitchen, cackling in glee as I knelt in front of the oven. The reason? I was waiting for my little ghosties and jack-o'-lantern cakes to come out so I could devour them. (But the real reason is that I'm way too uncool to be invited to any Halloween parties, and I suffer from acute social phobia.)

These little cakes are an homage to the Satan cakes Googy and I used to bake while we lived in the Pony Club - so named because they were devilishly delish. They're gooey chocolate cakes with a spoonful of Nutella hidden in the middle, and a far cry from the sickly, vapid fairy cakes supermarkets tend to offer. 

I've been sworn unto death not to reveal the secret of Satan cakes, though, and these ghoulish cakes were the result of me throwing some ingredients together, so I haven't got a recipe for you. What this post is, instead, is a kind of 'how-to assemble your own bleeding ghostie cake'. 

The silicon ghost and jack-'o-lantern moulds came from Sainsburys, but it's not a big deal if you can't find them. You can always bake them as regular cupcakes, then draw scary faces on afterwards.

You'll need:

Ghost/ Jack-o'-lantern silicon moulds (if you can find them)

or

Cupcake liners

Your favourite chocolate cake recipe

Your favourite red jam (I used a raspberry conserve)

100gm white chocolate

50ml milk (I used vanilla-flavoured soy milk*)

1. Preheat your oven if needed, and grease the silicon moulds. Make up the chocolate cake batter.

2. Drop a couple of tablespoons of cake batter into each mould, then add a teaspoon (or 2) of jam on top. Add more cake batter until each mould is about 3/4 full.

3. Bake for time required. Remove cakes from moulds and let them cool.

4. Once cool, start preparing the white chocolate ganache for the top. Finely chop up the white chocolate, place it into a heatproof bowl and heat up the milk. Pour the milk over the white chocolate and stir until you get a smooth, homogeneous mixture. Pour or drizzle the mixture over each cake, leaving a thin layer of ganache on top. 

5. Try and wait til the chocolate cools before eating. Watch as they magically disappear into your tummy! Spooky!

*The combination of white chocolate and vanilla-flavoured soy milk makes the ganache taste like condensed milk. I'm a fan.