How to make a Halloween monster cake using ready to roll icing

Trick or treat? If you’re throwing a Halloween party this year you’ll definitely want a treat for everyone to enjoy. Toffee apples and sweets are all well and good, but why not create a fang-tastic monster cake for everyone to tuck into.

This cake uses ready to roll icing in a variety of ghoulish colours to create a cute but creepy monster.

Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

• 180g self-raising flour
• 120g butter
• 340g sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 220ml of buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons of vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons of red food colouring
• 4 tablespoons of cocoa power
• A pinch of salt

Baking Your Cake

Gather all your ingredients together and put the oven on to preheat at 170 degrees Celsius.

1. First, sift together your flour, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and salt in a large bowl.
2. In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk, vanilla extract, vinegar and food colouring.
3. Put your butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until it’s fluffy.
4. Beat your two eggs together and then mix the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar.
5. Pour in a third of your flour mix and combine, then half the buttermilk mixture. Then add another third of the flour and mix followed by the remaining buttermilk and finally the last of the flour.
6. Grease two 18cm cake tins and divide the mix evenly between the two.
7. Bake the cakes for about 20 minutes, until the sponge is risen, springy to the touch and a skewer in the middle comes out clean.
8. Leave the cakes in the tins to cool for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Decorating Your Cake With Ready To Roll Icing

Before you can add the ready to roll icing you’ll need to cover your cake in buttercream to get a smooth even surface. To make this you’ll need:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 400g icing sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons of milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

To make the buttercream simply beat the butter in a bowl until it is a light texture, then sift the icing sugar in and mix together, add the milk and vanilla extract and beat until combined.

Then use half of the buttercream mix to sandwich the two cakes together. Use a spatula to cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream. Now it’s time to add the ready to roll icing.

To make this monster cake truly terrifying you’ll be using a mix of suitably scary colours:

• 500g purple ready to roll icing
• 250g black ready to roll icing
• White ready to roll icing
• Green ready to roll icing
• 250g blue ready to roll icing
• Black food colouring
• Icing sugar
• White piping icing

That seems like a long list of ingredients but don’t let it worry you. The process of decorating the cake is actually straightforward.

1. Lightly dust your work surface with icing sugar. Then knead your purple ready to roll icing until it’s pliable. Roll it out to a thickness of about 2-3mm.
2. Using your rolling pin for support, lift the purple icing up and drape it over the cake. Smooth down the sides with your hand, taking care to ease out any wrinkles.
3. For the eye stalks cut a cake dowel in two and wrap purple icing around them, then insert into the cake.
4. Take your blue ready to roll icing and knead it well before rolling out. Using a small circle cutter press out several circles and then stick them to the cake using cooled, boiled water. Place them wherever looks best to you.
5. Roll two large balls of black icing for the eye balls.
6. Now to create the eyes roll out some white, green and black ready to roll icing and cut progressively smaller circles from each. Then glue them to each other using cooled, boiled water. These can then be stuck to the eyeballs using the same method.
7. Pipe a smile onto the cake using your piping icing. Then roll out some white ready to roll icing and cut two or more triangles for teeth. Fix these into place.

Because ready to roll icing is so simple to use, achieving devilishly delightful finishes like this is easy.

Now you have a spook-tacular cake to be the centrepiece of your Halloween party. Enjoy!

* This is a collaborative post *