It’s not a secret: If you know me a little, you’ll notice that Halloween is by far my favorite holiday, before Christmas. (And actually, I don’t really like Christmas holidays…)
A few weeks ago, I prepared a little moodboard about fall, and especially Salem (the serie) and witches. Like my post inspired by Hannibal, this time I wanted to recreate new staging. And I had a lot of fun playing with dark elements!
Of course, the light doesn’t look quite like expected, and some elements are missing because the time was running. And definetely, I need a new camera. But I’m quite happy with the composition which reminds me some old painting.
If you wonder, no, I’m not playing that much with gothic stuffs, I keep them only for Halloween.
The fabric and the gothic dress comes from my mother, who keep a lot of stuff. I found a lot a treasures like this dress that belonged to my grandmother I think, In the middle of other stuff from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s… I took almost everything with me!
This time, and because I didn’t posted for almost two weeks, there is two recipes that you can adapt as you want. The layer cake is a classic adapted from the book “Sweet food and photography” of Linda Lomelino, and the bundt cake is perfect for this season.
- For the cake
- - 75gr butter
- - 325g sugar
- - 100g flour
- - 60g cocoa
- - 1 tbls baking powder
- - 1 tbls bicarbonate
- - 1 pinch of salt
- - 2 eggs
- - 175ml milk
- - 175ml boiled water
- - 250ml 35% cream
- - 250gr mascapone
- - 125gr icing sugar
- Preheat the oven 175°C. Butter and flour 3 Ø 15cm pan.
- Melt the butter and let it cool.
- Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt.
- Add eggs, butter and milk then whip. Add the boiled water and beat until the mixture is smooth.
- Pour into the pans and bake for about 35, 40 min.
- Let the cakes cool before frosting.
- Beat whipping cream until stiff.
- Add sugar and mascapone and continue whipping until stiff.
- Frost the first layer of cake, repeat with the other layers.
- Just be sure that the cut-side down of cake goes on top of the frosting and that your last layer has the bottom facing upwards.
- Apply the crumb coat. Apply a thin layer of frosting over the top and sides of your cake. It is okay for the cake to show through, you just want to seal in any crumbs so they won’t show in the final top coat.
- It's ready!
- This recipe has been adapted from Linda Lomelino's book
- - 200g butter
- - 150g flour
- - 100g golden brown sugar
- - 1 tbls vanilla sugar
- - 1/2 tbls baking powder
- - 50ml buttermilk
- - 2 eggs
- - 15g almond powder
- - 2 tbs speculoos powder
- - 100g powder sugar
- - 1 egg white
- - lemon juice
- Preheat oven 180°C.
- Melt the butter and let it cool. Mix together the brown sugar, vanilla sugar, flour, baking powder, Speculoos and almond powder.
- Add egges and mix with butter. Add buttermilk and whisk until smooth.
- Butter and flour Bundt (or Kouglof) pan and bake about 40, 50 min.
- Let it cool.
- Mix egg white with sugar. Add a few drops of lemon juice.
- Pour over the cake immediately, letting the glaze run down the sides
- Add some cranberries on top.
- A bundt cake perfect for winter cold nights !
Enjoy Hallowwen and stay tuned, some DIY are coming soon!
