Halloween Recipes - Wanda's Halloween Cookbook

Halloween recipes TOMBSTONE CAKE

Need a nifty dessert for your Halloween party? How about a cake shaped like a tombstone? With a little imagination and some icing, you can make a tombstone cake that Betty Croak-er would be proud of!

You used to be able to find a tombstone shaped cake pan at most cake decorating supply or large craft stores but they seemed to have disappeared. If you can't find one or don't have one, use a 13x9 flat pan and round off the top of the cake or cut off the top corners, so it looks tombstone shaped.

Mix and bake cake according to directions on cake mix box. Let cool. Remove from cake pan and lay on a flat cake board. A little trick is to cover the board with aluminum foil or parchment paper and you can take the slices off easier.

Decorate according to direction that came with the cake pan. If you are doing this from scratch (without a tombstone pan) you can still make a great looking cake.

Frost the cake using a gray frosting. The recipe below is a professional decorators icing, you can mix paste food color with it without thinning it out. Use black paste frosting coloring, adding a tiny bit at a time to make gray. After the cake is frosted, it's time to add the decoration to it.

You'll need cake decorating tips or pre-made decorating frosting and the tips that can be used with it. Add "cracks" to the tombstone using black icing, write an epitaph on it or R.I.P.. You can use Halloween cookie cutters to make shapes, for instance, a bat, by setting the cookie cutter on the cake and spooning colored sugar into it, leaving a bat shape when the cookie cutter is removed.

TIPS
Using disposable pastry bags for frosting makes clean-up easier. Using a frosting spatula available at craft and cake decorating stores makes applying frosting easier, too. You can use canned frosting or make a simple frosting like this one:

1 cup of shortening
2 cups of powdered (confectioners) sugar
1 teaspoon meringue powder
1 tablespoon cold water

Using a hand mixer, blend the ingredients together until silky smooth. Separate into bowls and use paste food color to make the needed frosting colors.