Black Cat Cake

Witches, Zombies, Vampires, Peirs Morgan. Halloween brings out all the scary stuff, so in celebration/preparation why not serve up a feline-themed treat with our chocolate cake. 

PREPARATION TIME: 50 MINS
COOKING TIME: 1 HR, 40 MINS

 Items Needed

• 20cm round cake tin, 7.5cm deep
• medium sized pan
• 3 Bowls for mixing

Ingredients Needed

• Icing sugar
• 100g each black and yellow or orange fondant icing
• 200g butter, cubed, plus extra for the tin
• 200g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules
• 170g plain flour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 400g golden caster sugar
• 30g cocoa powder
• 3 eggs
• 75ml milk
• 1 heart-shaped jelly sweet (haribos hearts will do), Pocky sticks, Matchmakers

Cooking Method

To begin, lightly dust your work surface with icing sugar, then roll out about a quarter of the black icing to the thickness a ruler. Cut out two triangles for the ears of the cat and leave to these to dry overnight.

Now on to the main event, heat your oven to 160C fan/gas marl 3. Butter and line your cake tin. Put your dark chocolate into your pan with butter. Mix 1 tablespoon coffee granules into 125ml cold water and add to the pan to mix. after that warm over a low heat until the mixture is just melted, don’t let it boil! (You can also melt in the microwave).

Next we mix the flour, bicarb and sugar with the cocoa powder together. Proceed then to beat the eggs with the milk in a separate bowl. Pour the chocolate mixture and the egg mixture into one bowl with the flour mixture and stir everything together to make a smooth batter.

Then pour the mixed batter into cake the tin and bake for 1 hr 25 to 1 hr 35 mins (depending on your oven of course) until you can place a knife into the center of the cake and it comes out clean, with the top feeling slightly hard (don’t worry if it cracks a bit it happens). Leave to cool inside of the tin for approximately 30 mins (the top may sink a little as it cools down) afterwards turn the cake out onto a rack to cool completely. 

As for the frosting, place the butter in a spare bowl and beat until it is light and fluffy. Then beat in the icing sugar and cocoa powder into the butter mixture, afterwards stir in milk to make the icing fluffy as well as spreadable. enclose the layers of the cake itself together using a small amount of frosting as a glue. then you need to melt the chocolate in a microwave, stir it into the remaining frosting. One that is completed use the mixture to cover the cake.

For the cats facial features, stick black fondant ears into the top of the cake. Cut out the other coloured fondant circles to make the eyes, then use more black fondant to make the pupils for said eyes. Stick these on top of the cake and add a heart-shaped jelly sweet for the nose. Use matchmakers cut into lengths for the whiskers and done!