Melt the white chocolate skull cap by pouring the bloody custard sauce to reveal the jello brain hidden inside! It’s Halloween Week on The Flavor Bender, and I’ve got another gory and delicious treat for you guys today, following close on the heels of these awesome 5 Mini Monster Cakes, white chocolate lava cake (aka bleeding heart cake!), and this Flaming Dragon’s Blood Cocktail and Witch’s heart cocktail!
Halloween cake
Today I’m sharing a recipe for a Boozy Chocolate Skull Cake with jello brain, a crackling skull cap and a red velvet blood sauce! Yep, it’s one of a kind triple threat of a dessert and if you’re looking for a showstopping Halloween cake to wow your guests, this is just what you need! 🙂 This boozy chocolate skull cake is a fantastic Halloween recipe and centerpiece for your Halloween dinner party! So imagine, there’s this beautiful skull covered in a thin coating of white chocolate ganache, and then just before you serve the cake, you pour warm creamy red velvet creme anglaise (bloody custard sauce) on top to melt the chocolate skull cap, revealing the strawberry jello brain piece. I took inspiration from that famous pig blood scene from the movie Carrie! 🙂 And what’s even better is that this boozy chocolate skull cake feature THREE DIFFERENT DESSERTS in one masterpiece!
Three components to this chocolate skull cake
A Halloween-worthy bourbon soaked black chocolate cake
The black chocolate cake is made with black cocoa, similar to my bleeding black cupcakes (Halloween cupcake recipe). It’s coated with chocolate ganache and then a thin layer of white chocolate ganache. To make things easier, you can skip the chocolate ganache layer, but that crumb coating helps with sculpting the skull cake and define those features like the eye sockets, nose area, mouth etc. When the crumb coating is smooth and has set, you pour the white chocolate ganache layer so that the final product is white and stands out against the blood red custard sauce you’ll be pouring on top later. I wanted this cake to stand upright, so I created a small base with the excess cake scraps and then sealed it all together with some ganache. The chocolate skull cake is soaked in a bourbon simple syrup and is deliciously moist and fudgy.
Strawberry jello brain and red velvet pouring custard
The brain is made with pieces of strawberry jello that has real strawberry pieces in it. I added 2 tbsp NON-FAT evaporated milk to create a more “brain tissue like” look. You don’t need a brain mold for this, I just cut the set jello into small pieces and piled them on top of the cake. The irregular pieces look pretty awesome to me, and it’s easier to assemble too. Warm red velvet creme anglaise (red velvet pouring custard) is poured on top of the jello to create a gruesome “bloody look”, with excess bloody custard sauce drips down the side of the cake too.
Popping candy skull cap
The brain is covered with a white chocolate shell that has popping candy in it, so that as you melt the white chocolate with the warm red velvet custard, the popping candy starts popping and crackling like you know – a cracking skull, ha! I just thought it added another layer of gruesome surprise. You can serve the cake with extra pieces of popping candy “skull cap” pieces too. With 3 amazing desserts in one showstopping spooky Halloween treat, this chocolate skull cake is perfect to wow your guests! I made the boozy chocolate skull cake with my own, tried and true chocolate cake recipe using black cocoa so that it has that Halloween-worthy black look (similar to these bleeding black cupcakes). After you pour the white chocolate ganache layer, and the cake is chilled, you can mold that white chocolate layer as you please, to refine the look of your skull cake.
Recipe note
Make sure to add the bourbon syrup BEFORE you stick the cakes together. That’s what I did the first time I tested this recipe, and the cake soaked more of the bourbon syrup. But when I recorded the video, I completely forgot to soak it with bourbon syrup first! ADOY! Since this is a RECIPE + tutorial, it’s going to be quite long. BUT, I’ve included all the tips and made it as easy as possible to follow along. So make sure to read everything first to understand all the steps before you get started. You will also need a specialty skull cake pan for this Halloween cake. I use the Wilton Dimensions 3D skull cake pan.
Recipe video
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