Vegan Red Velvet Halloween Cake
This spooky Red Velvet Halloween Cake has all the texture and flavour of the classic American cake but with a fun, spooky design. Get the recipe below.
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Cake recipes for Halloween
Whether you’re throwing a big Halloween party or staying in to watch horror movies a Halloween themed cake is a must. This Vegan Red Velvet Halloween Cake is the perfect cake for such a celebration!
What is red velvet cake?
Red velvet cake is a classic American cake. It isn’t like your ordinary cake recipe as it’s traditionally made with buttermilk giving it a tangy flavour and vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to get a light velvetty texture.
It’s often served with cream cheese frosting.
How do you make red velvet cake vegan?
This recipe creates a tall cake made up of 4 layers. I will presume that you only have 2x 6 inch cake tins and that your oven is only large enough to bake 2 layers at a time. Of course if you have enough cake tins and room in your oven you can mix all of the batter in one go.
For now, lets just bake 2 layers at once.
First begin by adding the lemon juice to the soy milk. Give it a good stir and leave it to one side. As you leave it the soy milk will begin to curdle. This makes a vegan equivalent to buttermilk.
Next sift together your dry ingredients. Sifting will ensure there are no lumps.
Add the buttermilk to the dry ingredients along with the oil, vinegar and vanilla paste.
Fold until all of the ingredients are combined.
Working quickly, divide the batter between the two tins and bake.
Simple right?
All you need to do is repeat the process for another two layers of cake.
Not vegan? You can find my classic red velvet cake recipe here.
How to decorate a Halloween Cake
My Red Velvet Halloween Cake decoration is inspired by Korean Lunchbox Cakes. They are so cute! I’ve used a black frosting to coat the cake and white frosting for the ghosts. Just follow the simple steps below and you will have an adorable Halloween cake.
You’ll need:
- An offset spatula or palette knife
- A cake scraper
- Kitchen tweezers
- White/uncoloured frosting
- Black frosting
- Sprinkles
Stack your cake
To get the perfect finish on your cake you need to make sure that your cakes have been carefully stacked. If your cakes have domed, leave them to cool completely then use a serrated knife to trim them until they are flat on top. (Any off cuts are chefs perks!)
Place a small amount of frosting on to a cake board then place your first cake layer on to the board.
Place your frosting into a piping bag and cut an opening roughly 1 inch wide. Pipe a ring around the edge of the top of the cake then fill the rest in, evening the buttercream out with a spatula.
Place the next layer on top and press down gently making sure the top layer is level.
Crumb coat
Once your layers are stacked and level, pipe the black frosting around the outside and on top of the cake.
Using a palette knife or offset spatula, spread it out around the cake until it is completely covered.
Next use an icing scraper, just touching the edge of the iced cake and carefully pull it around the cake to even out the icing. You will see that any stray crumbs get trapped in this layer of frosting. Be careful not to remove too much frosting in the process.
Before moving on to the next step, chill the cake until the crumb coat is set hard.
Icing the cake
Place a large dollop of the black frosting on top of the cake.
Using an offset spatula spread the frosting until smooth on top, any excess frosting can be spread down the sides of the cake.
Pipe more frosting around the outside of the cake until the crumb coat is covered and use your scraper to spread the icing out evenly around the edge of the cake.
To get sharp edges on the top of the cake, lightly pull the frosting inwards onto the top of the cake. Keep removing any excess frosting from the spatula and repeat until the edges are crisp.
How to ice ghosts
Pipe large circles of white frosting on to the cake where you’d like the ghosts to be.
Using a spatula drag the frosting downwards creating the tail of the ghost.
Use sprinkles or pip a little black frosting for the eyes.
Adding sprinkles
To apply the sprinkles with precision use clean kitchen tweezers and press them gently into the frosting.
The recipe
Vegan Red Velvet Halloween Cake
Equipment
- 2 6 inch cake tins
Ingredients
For the Red Velvet Cake:
- 500 g self raising flour
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 400 g caster sugar
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 480 ml soy milk
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 250 ml vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 2 tsp vanilla paste
- 12 tsp red gel food colouring
For the frosting
- 225 g vegan butter hard block butter, not spreadable
- 115 g vegan cream cheese
- 500 g icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / gas mark 4.
- Line 2x 6 inch cake pans with baking paper.
- In a jug, mix together half of the soy milk and half of the lemon juice and leave to curdle.
- Sift half of the flour and half of the cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and add half of the sugar and half of the baking soda.
- Add the the vegan buttermilk, half of the oil, half of the vinegar, half of the vanilla extract and half of the red gel food colour to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Divide the batter between the two tins and bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until they are bouncy to the touch and/or a skewer inserted into the centre of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool in their pans for 5 minutes before turning them out on to a cooling rack.
- Repeat the instructions above to make another 2 layers.
- While the cakes are cooling, add the butter and cream cheese into a mixing bowl and beat until creamy and smooth.
- Add in the icing sugar 100g at a time until it is thick but spreadable.
- Once the cakes are completely cool frost with your own design.
Nutrition
Cake week on the Great British Bake Off.
Every year when the Great British Bake Off descends on our TVs I take one of the challenges and bake along with the show. This Vegan Red Velvet Halloween Cake recipe is a homage to cake week.
For more Great British Bake Off inspired cakes and bakes check out the GBBO Bake Along collection.
More spooky cakes
The Halloween recipe collection
For the full range of Halloween recipes like this Vegan Red Velvet Halloween Cake check out the Halloween recipe collection.