* Disclaimer: this blog post was created for the purpose of an assignment

Strange, but true. Our task was to create or write something in an area of interest out of the curriculum, while still linking it back to our medical studies. No prizes for guessing what immediately sprang to mind! AND I realised it was perfect timing for a how-to on bleeding heart cakes with Halloween just around the corner. I mean, could you imagine one of these as the centre piece of buttercream-frosted cake, dripping blood (I mean, berries..) down the sides?

To be honest, our family has never been big on Halloween. It is nowhere near as celebrated in New Zealand as it is in America, and what there is seems hugely commercialised – a profit-making venture above all else. Although in America, Halloween began as a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, brought over by Scottish and Irish colonists and has now been celebrated for over 100 years, in New Zealand it has emerged in the last decade or two via American popular culture (Mean Girls, anyone?) – and perhaps because of this seems less authentic, cheaper.

Though you might now see a few groups of small children on the streets, houses are not decorated, pumpkins are not carved (mainly because it is spring!), there are no fall festivals or bonfires, and Halloween parties are only just gaining traction. However, I have experienced that once – fall festivals, trick-or-treating and all – during the months we spent living in Pittsburgh around age seven. I think my brothers and I were a little overwhelmed (or overjoyed, maybe!) by the sheer quantities of treats we managed to collect whilst traipsing around the neighbourhood – it was a whole new world of Halloween.

In saying this, I do appreciate Halloween baking. Growing up with memories of family festivities, scarily decorated cupcakes and homemade costumes is quite different from the mass-produced plastic-y outfits and huge bags of sugary sweets that seem to have dominated the New Zealand market.

It did make this assignment far more bearable than many others. Constructing chocolate heart cakes and getting my brothers to act as models, sinking their hands into the gory ‘blood’ and smearing it across their faces, was highly entertaining for the rest of the family. I think they had fun too – what boy doesn’t dream about getting to stuff cake in their mouths as messily as possible without reprimand?! (just to clarify – the hands making the cakes are mine. The hands ruining the cakes are my brother’s)

They are made from texas-muffin tin sized chocolate cakes- fluffy, dark and studded with chocolate chunks. You then shape pairs of the cakes into a roughly oval anatomical heart-shape (see the picture with the cakes on top of the fondant), stick them together with smears of smooth chocolate buttercream and wrap the red fondant up and around the them, molding out arteries at the top. Homemade piping gel is surprisingly cheap and simple – sugar, lemon juice, cornflour and water comes together into a glossy, thick paste that can be coloured with red and black food colouring and painted straight onto the fondant for that bloody, straight-out-of-your-chest look. A dark purple berry compote (strained to remove seeds) is the final touch, dolloped into the arteries and down the cake for extra gory, bloody effect.

From a distance, they look scarily realistic.

If you have a person to scare this Halloween, have a show-stopping cake to make, or simply want to have a bit of fun in the kitchen, give them a go! (and don’t be put off by the long instructions – just wanted to explain as much as possible!)

Construction notes:

• You have two options for the heart size: for a realistic heart shape, use 1 chocolate cake + a curved cut-out part of another one stuck together. Using this method you will get a maximum of 4 hearts. If you don’t mind if it is more round (see the ones at the back of my photos), then just use a single chocolate cake – in which case you could make 8 hearts but will need more fondant. You could also make fewer hearts and just eat the extra chocolate cakes!
• Another option if you don’t have texas muffin tins is to make smaller versions in normal muffin tins – they just will be smaller than an ‘anatomical’ heart size. You will have to alter the cooking time of the cakes though as they will bake more quickly.
• Please comment below if you have any questions at all!

The post Gory Bleeding Heart Cakes appeared first on The Brick Kitchen.