Graveyard Cake (Charleen Utecht)

Dough:

1. For the scary cake, a so-called “Red Velvet Cake” is baked first. To do this, beat the butter and sugar with a hand mixer until frothy and mix in the eggs one by one. Cut a vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the pulp with the blunt side of the knife and add to the butter-sugar-egg mixture.
2. In another bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. The buttermilk is now colored dark red with the red food coloring. Alternate with the buttermilk, add the dry ingredients through a sieve to the dough mass. If the dough does not have the desired “redness” at the end, add some food coloring or, if necessary, beetroot juice.
3. Place the dough on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, smooth it out and bake for about 25 minutes at 160 ° C. After 20 minutes, check the consistency with a wooden stick. If the dough still sticks to the wooden stick, bake for another 5 minutes. Then let the cake cool on a wire rack.

Filling / coating:

1. For the filling, stir the soft butter with the cream cheese until creamy and gradually add the powdered sugar until the desired consistency is achieved. Put this buttercream in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Raspberry sauce:

1. Now the raspberry sauce is prepared. To do this, wash the raspberries, pat dry a little and place in a bowl. Add powdered sugar and lemon juice (if you like) and puree the whole thing with a hand blender. To remove the seeds of the raspberries, strain the mixture through a sieve and also chill.

Serving:

1. Now divide the cake in the middle and place on top of each other. This is the best way to remove protruding edges and the edges. Draw a snake-shaped “channel” in the lower cake base and fill it with the raspberry sauce. Then carefully spread the buttercream over it and put the second cake base on top. Now brush the whole cake with a thin layer of buttercream and put it in the fridge.

Decoration

1. For the “earthy” look you can either finely crumble the biscuit halves of the Oreo or chocolate biscuits (large package each) or simply shred the cut edges of the cake. Now press the chocolate crumbs to the edges of the cake by hand, avoiding the top.
2. For the decoration, stir the butter until creamy and sift in the powdered sugar until you have a firm but spreadable buttercream. Color them with green gel paint and fill in a piping bag with a “grass nozzle”.
3. Now spray the “grass” over the entire cake topper. A small area can be left free, as a pile of earth is created here with the remaining cake or biscuit crumbs.
4. Finally, create a grain from the white and black fondant by “twisting” several times. Roll out on a countertop sprinkled with powdered sugar or starch and cut out a tombstone. Slide wooden skewers or raw pasta into the bottom and put aside to dry. Knead “witch legs” and black pointed shoes from the remaining pieces of fondant. Put these in the mound of earth and complete the whole thing with the tombstone.