Bakers have been making spooky Halloween Cakes for at least a hundred years. The October, 1924 issue of American Cookery magazine had a recipe for Witches’ Cake. The recipe intrigued me. It called for making a chocolate layer cake, and decorating it by putting the two parts of the cake together with a red frosting, then icing it with chocolate frosting, and decorating with small red candies that are arranged to make an outline of a witch.
This was a fun recipe to make. The cake was a rich and fudgy cake with an almost brownie-like texture.
Here’s the original recipe:
The old recipe called for tinting some of the frosting red with cochineal. I wasn’t familiar with cochineal so I did an online search. According to an article in Smithsonian Magazine, cochineal is a crimson dye made from an insect.
An average trip to the grocery store can yield a cartful of colorful foods. Bright among the rainbow are the reds, lending hues to products such as raspberry jam, canned cherries, strawberry licorice and red velvet cake. Often, their source is a certain small insect.
Cochineal bugs — oval-shaped scale insects around 0.2 inches long — are harvested and turned into the natural dyes cochineal extract, carmine and the pure pigment carminic acid. They have been used to color food, textiles and cosmetics for centuries.
Smithsonian Magazine (March 29, 2022)
I had no idea where I could buy cochineal, so I used dark red food coloring to tint the icing for the filling.
I didn’t find any small red wintergreen candies at the store where I shop, so I bought small red “sugar pearls” in the cake and cookie decorating section.
Squares of unsweetened baking chocolate have gotten smaller over the last hundred years. Back then a square was an ounce in size; today a square of a popular baking chocolate is 1/2 ounce.
This recipe doesn’t call for any baking powder or baking soda. The beaten egg whites provided the leavening.
I used 2/3 cup of milk, and I substituted all-purpose flour for the pastry flour.
I found recipes for Plain Frosting and Chocolate Frosting in a hundred-year-old cookbook:
I quadrupled the Plain Frosting recipe so that I’d have enough frosting to ice the cake. I did not use any water when making the Chocolate Frosting. I just used milk to get it to the right consistency. I used less chocolate than called for in the old recipe, since a square of chocolate was 1-ounce a hundred-years ago and the squares are smaller today- but it still was very chocolatey.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Witches' Layer Cake
Cake
4 eggs, separated
1 1/3 cups butter, softened
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted (4 1/2-ounce squares)
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose or pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup milk
small red candies (can use wintergreen candies or sugar pearls)
Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans; line with waxed paper or parchment paper, then grease again and lightly flour.
Put egg whites into a mixing bowl, and beat until peaks form. Set aside.
Cream 1/3 cup butter, then add the remaining 1 cup butter and the melted chocolate; beat until smooth. Stir in egg yolks and sugar. Sift together flour, salt, and cinnamon, then stir into the chocolate mixture alternately with the milk; continue stirring until thoroughly combined. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour the 1/2 of the batter into each of the cake pans.
Bake the layers for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled.
Make frosting (see below).
To assemble cake, trim cake layers if needed to make even, then put a layer on a plate. Spread with red frosting, and then put the other layer on top of it. Ice with the chocolate frosting, then decorate with red candies. I used a template of a witch as a guide when arranging the candies to make an outline of the witch.
Frosting
4 cups flour confectioners’ sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
red food coloring (I used “dark red” food coloring)
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate (4 1/2-ounce squares)
Combine confectioners’ sugar and 1/3 cup milk in a mixing bowl; beat until smooth. Add vanilla, and beat until combined. If the mixture to too thick add additional milk.
Red Filling: Put about 3/4 cup of the frosting into a small bowl. Add enough red food coloring to make the filling a bright red. Stir to combine.
Chocolate Frosting; Stir the melted chocolate into the remaining frosting.
Homemade is the best.
Agree- homemade is best.
The texture does look like a brownie! Love your witch!
Thanks! I had fun decorating the cake.
What a fun traditional cake. Tis the Halloween season.
Thanks for sharing.
Halloween is such a fun holiday!
Looks very rich and yummy! I think that the dark red food coloring is probably much safer than the cochineal;)
It was tasty. I know that various food colorings have been controversial across the years. I think that all the ones currently available are considered safe.
Chocolate cake is always a favorite at my house! I learned about the cochineal bugs a long time ago as that was what the red M&Ms were colored with! We used to wet the red ones and paint our lips red to look like we were wearing lipstick! I laugh but it works!
Fascinating – I hadn’t known that M&Ms were once colored with cochineal. Your comment about using the red ones to color your lips red reminded of how I used to occasionally use beets to color my lips red. What fun!
My great grandmother was Methodist and she wasn’t supposed to wear makeup. She had a silk rose from one of her hats that she’d wet and “freshen up” her lips and cheeks!
I love it. Thanks for sharing.
Even without a witch on top a chocolate cake is magic!!!
I like how you put that. Chocolate cakes can be magical. 🙂
I had never heard of cochineal either, Sheryl, and was fascinated to read your findings about it being made from insects. Beautiful cake you made.
cochineal was the red food colouring of my youth. I guess they figured out it wasn’t right – or maybe too expensive? – to keep all those bugs around. This cake looks great!
cheers
It’s fascinating that you can remember cochineal. I had never heard of it until I did this post.