It is that time of the year where the weather is wetter and getting cooler. The season for hot chocolates and big fluffy jumpers.
It’s also the month for all things spooky, Halloween has never been a big thing in our house. I just loved sitting down with sweets and watching Hocus Pocus.
I decided that I wanted to give pumpkins a bit of a sweet side and I looked back at my Funfetti Hearts that I loved making and thought well let’s make some super cute pumpkin shaped cake.
You will need a pumpkin cookie cutter for this unless you’re one of these talented people who can carve things out of cake. I’m not one of these people so a very trusted cookie cutter was used and did the job almost perfectly. (some people said they looked like apples).
I think these little pumpkins came out great and would look perfect at any Halloween party. I used Sprinkletti Spooky Mix to add some more spookiness to the tops of these cakes.
Chocolate Pumpkin Cakes
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 4 tbsp Hot Water
- 225 g butter
- 225 g caster sugar
- 275 g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 4 eggs
- 1 tbsp milk
Buttercream
- 150 g butter
- 300 g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp milk
- orange food colouring
- brown food colouring
Instructions
Pumpkins
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease and line a 23x30cm/9x12in traybake tin with baking paper.
- For the sponge, measure the cocoa powder and boiling water into a large bowl and mix until smooth. Mix the butter and sugar together until combined. Then add each egg one at a time and mix until all four are incorporated.
- Then sieve in the flour and baking powder then mix again until combined. Pour the mixture into the line tin and level out.
- Bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cake is coming away from the sides of the tin and is springy to the touch in the middle. Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
- Once the cake is fully cooled, remove from the tin and turn on to a work surface. Using a pumpkin cookie cutter, cut out pumpkins from the sponge.
Buttercream
- Beat the butter until its pale colour and fluffy. Then add the icing sugar a little at a time until all of it has been incorporated.
- Split the buttercream so you have an amount for the pumpkin stalk and the rest will be for the pumpkin. Add brown food colouring to the small amount of buttercream and mix until you have your desired colour.
- Add orange food colouring to the remaining buttercream and mix until you have a bright orange colour. Using a piping bag, pipe little brown stalks on to the tops of the pumpkins.
- Using another piping bag and a star nozzle, pipe orange buttercream on to the body of your pumpkin. Once all iced, add sprinkles if you desire.
