Step 1: find someone else's party to go to after! I found Ping's Halloween party (free entry before 11pm) to go to so that I would only be hosting for a couple of hours before we could all head over and have a nice time out. I booked a ping pong table for an hour too.
Step 2: invitations... even if its a low key thing, the formality of a proper invitation - this time emailed because I ran out of time - gets you in the mood. I designed the card below using Vivienne Westwood Wall Paper, Hirst's For The Love of God, a crown made from human bones from Kutna Hora near Prague (definitely worth a visit and certainly spooky) and inspiration from Holbein's 'The ambassadors.' It was fun having everyone guess the references.
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| Invite, address removed! |
Step 3: do a BYOB party but provide the puddings. If you are catching up with lots of old friends, no one will mind bringing their own drink and its nice to be able to make something for them. My wonderful friend Pippa helped me and we made ghost meringues and Nigella's chocolate fudge cake adorned with chocolate bat wings. See recipes below:
Ghost Meringues, adapted from Ottolenghi
This method is from Ottolenghi and the decoration / shape is from me
Ingredients
600g caster sugar
300g free range egg whites
gold or silver balls
Icing bag (I use normal plastic food bags and snip off the edge
Card for making gravestones!
Method
1. Preheat oven to 200C/Gas mark 6.
2. Spread sugar evenly on large oven tray lined with baking sheet. Place in the heated up oven for 8 minutes (you should start to see it dissolving at the edges)
3. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with an electric whisk on high speed for 1 min or so, so the whites really froth up.
4. Decant the hot sugar into a bowl and add slowly while whisking the whites.
5. Keep whisking on high speed for 10 minutes until it is completely cool. It should then be very silky and keep its shape.
6. Turn the oven down to 110C. Line a baking tray, sticking the baking sheet down with a few dabs of meringue mix between it and the baking tray.
7. Pour the mix into your piping/plastic bag. Snip of the end. Pipe the meringues into Michelin man style swirls around 5-6cm in diameter. I do this by piping it in a spiral getting narrower towards the top. Carefully place the balls on them as eyes.
8. Place in the preheated oven and leave for about 2 hours, check if they are done by lifting them from the tray and prodding them to see that the outside is completely firm but the centre still soft.
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool. They keep in a dry cool place for a good few days.
Finally, cut out gravestones and stick to your serving dish, as shown below.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 400 gram(s) plain flour
- 250 gram(s) golden castor sugar
- 100 gram(s) light muscovado sugar
- 50 gram(s) cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoon(s) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon(s) bicarbonate of soda
- ½ teaspoon(s) salt
- 3 medium eggs
- 142 ml sour cream
- 1 tablespoon(s) vanilla extract
- 175 gram(s) unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
- 125 ml corn oil
- 300 ml water (chilled)
For the fudge icing
- 175 gram(s) dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
- 250 gram(s) unsalted butter (softened)
- 275 gram(s) icing sugar (sieved)
- 1 tablespoon(s) vanilla extract
For the bat Wings
75g dark chocolate
Piping bag or plastic food bag
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
- Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In another bowl or wide-necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Using a freestanding or handheld electric mixer, beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended (you'll need another large bowl for this if using the hand whisk; the freestanding mixer comes with its own bowl), then beat in the water. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins. And actually, you could easily do this manually; I just like my toys and find the KitchenAid a comforting presence in itself.
- Bake the cakes for 50-55 minutes, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out onto the rack to cool completely.
- To make the icing, melt the chocolate in the microwave - 2-3 minutes on medium should do it - or in a bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and let cool slightly.
- In another bowl beat the butter until it's soft and creamy (again, I use the KitchenAid here) and then add the sieved icing sugar and beat again until everything's light and fluffy. I know sieving is a pain, the one job in the kitchen I really hate, but you have to do it or the icing will be unsoothingly lumpy. Then gently add the vanilla and chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth.
- Sandwich the middle of the cake with about a quarter of the icing, and then ice the top and sides too, spreading and smoothing with a rubber spatula.
- For the Batwings, copy out the stencil below onto grease proof paper and wrap around a chopping board that will fit in the fridge.
Carefully melt the chocolate in a bain marie and put aside until it cools enough so it is still liquid but not super runny. Put a paper clip around the end of a piping bag. Once the chocolate is cool enough, pour into the piping bag and snip of the end leaving a narrow hole. Pipe around the stencil. If the chocolate is too runny, pour into the rough shape and spread to the edges with a spoon.
Chill in the fridge for 3 minutes or so, keeping the rest of the chocolate in the piping bag.
After 3 minutes, take out and it should have formed a hard surface. Go over the shape again to thicken.
Chill in the fridge again
Finally, draw on the bones of the bat wing on the surface with the remaining chocolate and chill for at least 20 minutes.
To decorate, stick the bat wings at different angles into the cake.
Step 4: Decorations: I painted some animal bones and sculls, got some scary masks, and some pinned butterfly and spiders in frames out. For the pumpkins Pippa and I made a skull and a cat. I must say that Pippa's skull puts my attempt to shame!
I dressed up as a dead queen!
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