Halloween Black Widow Cake
This spooky black widow cake is ideal for this Halloween - especially as it is egg and dairy free as well as suitable for vegans too!
It's dark and spooky, the pumpkins are carved, cobwebs in place and frightful happenings are on the cards - it's time for a Halloween party.
Disgust your friends and family with sumptuous slimy snails and scare the tooth fairy with black widow cake.
These Halloween high jinks are created by the Vegetarian Society without the use of animal ingredients - such as gelatine, animal fat or crushed beetles.
For more great recipes visit www.vegsoc.org
Preparation time 10 minutes
Cooking time 45 minutes
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 100g soft eating liquorice pieces
- 175ml water
- 250ml vegetable oil
- 165g self-raising flour
- 100g sugar
- 25g cocoa powder
- 50g walnut pieces, ground
- 2 tbsp gram flour mixed with 4 tbsp water
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Few drops vanilla extract
For the icing:
- 60g icing sugar
- ½ tsp food colouring (optional)
- 1 tbsp water
To decorate:
- Black icing pen
- 1 piece of soft eating liquorice
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 180C/ Gas Mark 4. Chop the liquorice into small pieces and put in a small pan with 175ml water. Boil for about 5 minutes until the liquorice is starting to go soft and mushy. Remove from the heat and pour in the vegetable oil, stirring well.
- Put the remaining cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir in the liquorice mixture.
- Put in a small (18cm) lined cake tin and bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out of the middle of the cake clean.
- Leave in the cake tin to cool for about 10 minutes, then remove onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Mix together the icing sugar, food colouring (if using) and water, then spread over the cooled cake with a palette knife, gently and evenly. Using the black icing pen draw a web pattern on top of the icing. Then make a spider out of the spare piece of liquorice!
© The Vegetarian Society