For additional cake decorating ideas go to Cake Decorating Ideas.
Halloween Recipe – Soul Cake Recipe
In the days long before Halloween had become the commercialized event we know today, Soul cakes were traditionally given out to the poor by the wealthy in return for saying prayers for the souls of the wealthy’s dead around the time of All Souls Day on November 2nd. The poor children would go from door to door “Souling” for these tasty treats. Souling is one of many old traditions which came together to form the more recognisable Halloween traditions of today. These days, of course, our children go door knocking for treats dressed as monsters and witches and they are given sweets in return for not playing tricks on the householders.
For more info on the origins of Halloween, Soul cakes and Souling click here.
Here is a recipe for Soul Cakes. Make them for your Halloween Party for a traditional Halloween touch. The recipe is very easy to follow. Soul cakes were made with simple and readily available ingredients as they needed to be relatively simple and economical to make. However they did also needed to be tasty enough to be considered a treat by the children.
A Soul cake is very similar to a tea cake or Hot Cross Bun but it doesn’t have any currants or a cross on the top. You could serve your soul cakes with a little butter if desired or even honey or jam or you can eat them just plain.
Soul Cake Ingredients;
6oz Butter
6oz Castor sugar
1lb Plain flour sifted with a pinch of salt
3 Egg yolks
Teaspoon of ground mixed spice
Milk to bind
Soul Cake Method;
1. Cream the butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg yolks.
3. Fold in the flour and the mixed spice to form a firm dough. Add milk to bind if needed.
4. Knead the dough well then roll out to about 1cm thick.
5. Cut into rounds with a medium sized pastry cutter, prick with a fork and place on a baking sheet.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C / 350F Gas 4
7. Dust with icing sugar. Serve warm or cold.
There you have it a simple and tasty traditional Halloween recipe the humble Soul cake.
Written by JennyB
Article Writer
Find More Origins Of Halloween Articles
In today’s society, cakes are a favored way to observe just about any occasion. There are a huge number of cake decorating ideas available for you to use. Still, it is not always easy to know how to decorate a cake. Luckily, there is a wide variety of items and cake pans that will assist with making decorating cakes easy as, well, pie.
To begin, it is important to know what occasion to make your cake for. For example, it would not look good to offer an Elmo birthday cake when going to a Saint Patrick’s Day party. The good news is, once you know the occasion, the rest is simple.
ANIMALS
There are a lot of animal pans that you can use. A lot of occasions can be represented by an animal. For instance, a rabbit frequently typifies Easter, a deer can be used for Christmas, and a cat cake can be used at Halloween.
Or, you can choose from many popular character animals for birthdays. Presently fashionable animal characters include Blue the dog from Blue’s Clues, Elmo and many of his pals from Sesame Street, and Boots the monkey and Swiper the fox from Dora the Explorer.
The ornaments on top of the cake can also include animals. There are tons of small, plastic animals available at stores that you can use to decorate your cakes. This is an an outstanding way to create a zoo scene for animal lovers.
HOLIDAYS
Holidays are forever fun to make cakes for, and you can let your imagination go wild. If nothing else, you can use colored sprinkles. You can add edible heart decoration sprinkles on cakes meant for Valentine’s Day. Orange and black sprinkles are perfect for Halloween cakes, as are red and green sprinkles for Christmas cakes.
Ornamental cake pans are available in shapes particular to holidays that make them perfect for holiday cakes. Frankenstein, ghosts,, and other monsters are perfect for Halloween. Pumpkin cake pans will work for both Halloween and Thanksgiving cakes. Turkeys and cornucopias can also be used for Thanksgiving. Hearts and cherub pans are perfect for Valentine’s Day. Bunnies and eggs are just right for Easter. Leprechauns, pots of gold, and rainbows pans are great for Saint Patrick’s Day. Just find a pan or decorative item that typifies a holiday and you are good to go.
VEHICLES
Boys seem to be born enamored with moving vehicles. There is just something about a moving vehicle that enthralls young boys. You can make cakes that showcase boats, airplanes, cars, dump trucks, fire engines, helicopters, and tractors. You can set vehicles into the icing to make scenes with them. You can even add Lego’s people and small building built from Lego’s. Just make sure that anything you place onto the cake will not be damaged by either the icing or water from washing off the frosting from the vehicle or item.
YOUR OWN IMAGINATION
Do not forget that your own imagination can be just as wonderful, if not better than, manufactured pans and ideas. You are likely to come up with themes that no one else has come op with before. Your local arts and crafts store can be a wonderful place to get ideas and items that you can use for your own ideas.
Are you worried that you are not good enough to decorate a cake well? Do not worry about this. Do not make the perfect cakes seen at bakeries your goal when decorating cakes. They are sure to be wonderful regardless of how they turn out. Know that your efforts are certain be appreciated, no matter how they turn out. So, bake and decorate your cake, then sit back and enjoy the praise you get from those who enjoy the fruits (or, in this case, cakes) of your labor.
Halloween cake decorating is fun for all ages. Halloween is all about haunted houses, carved pumpkins, and edible eyeballs. The spirit to honor the dead and trying to make sense of life after death has found its way into the Halloween spirit.
The American film makers have helped the haunted spirit and spooky figures of the Halloween a lot. Bats, black cats, ghosts, spiders, crows, witches and ghouls, everything that is spooky can be an ides that find its way into the Halloween cake decorating.
Vampires, aliens, zombies, mummies, werewolves, demons and mystical monsters these are some of the popular Halloween characters. But the symbolism in the modern times is inspired by the classic American films. They deal with fictitious characters such as Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Mummy and the Wolf man.
When you are baking a cake for Halloween party you can be very creative. You can make the haunted house. If you are throwing a kiddy party then you can bake a chocolate cake. Cover the cake with black icing. You can pipe in white icing to make a spider web. If you can manage a big spider on the top, try or you can go in for artificial spider to complete the picture. The kids will live it.
Halloween cake decorating is fun if you are making a cake for elder children. You can be as graphic as you want. You can use different molds to bake the cake and make them look like human body parts. Use red, orange and black colors to decorate your cake. You can use readymade Halloween figures that are available in the market. Green monsters, spooky looking aliens can also make your Halloween cake decorating all the more spooky.
There are many superstitions in connection with Halloween. Bats and black cats are a major part of superstitions. One of the superstitions is if a bat comes in the house on the Halloween day that means that it is a sign. It is a sign of spirits and ghosts are near your house or they are already in your house and they let the bat come into the house.
If you spot a spider on Halloween it means a dead loved one is watching you.
All these superstitions will help you to Halloween cake decorating. You can cut a flat cake into a bat shape. Use black icing use red color for the eyes and paint white teeth. Put those on the cake.
Halloween cake decorating can be fun to do. There are lots of things particular to Halloween such as the carved pumpkin, lanterns and the popular ghost stories. You can pick up any idea. Bake the cake, at times two or three different cakes using different molds. And you can create the entire spirit of Halloween on the cake. Make use of readymade Halloween figures that you get in the market or just be creative and make some figures yourself. It does not matter they do not look perfect. All the aliens that we see in the cinema or read about in the books are never good looking. The messier the look the better, so just go for it.
Cake decorating Halloween themes can be a blast. The cake actually has become an essential part of our celebrations today. May that be a birthday, wedding, anniversary, homecoming party or a house warming ceremony, with the festive food you will find a decorated cake on the dining table. So when it is Halloween time you will find a cake to match the festivities.
The tradition of Halloween dates back thousands of years to Celtic rituals. People believed that on once a year the human world and the other dark world of the spirits and ghosts overlap. It is possible for the spirits to return to earth. The date was fixed as October 31.
In the olden days the Celts celebrated their new year on November 1. Which was a official day marked as the end of summer and beginning of cold and dark winter in Ireland.
Over the years two Roman traditions were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration. The first tradition was commemorating the dead and the second was to honor the Roman Goddess of fruit and trees called Pomona.
The modern day celebration of Halloween is the mixture of the ancient beliefs and now it is celebrated to have fun.
The surrounding imagery for Halloween is a mixture of old customs and traditions and of course American filmmakers and graphic artists. They have come up with amazing characters. The common theme is dark and mysterious. It also involves skeletons, ghosts, mythical monsters. Bats, Owls and crows along with haunted houses and pumpkin men, black cats are very common things that are associated with Halloween.
All of these things are to be found on a cake decorating for Halloween. The house is decorated to resemble to the haunted house or for Dracula’s castle and the cake is decorated with spiders, black cats or bats.
You can get cake toppings with figures associated with Halloween. The figures could be that of Grim Reaper, or Halloween witch. You can have fun with these cake toppers. Cake decorating Halloween can be a family fun activity. If your children can join to decorate the cake the entire family can have lots of fun.
You get many more things to decorate your Halloween cake in the market. Few of them are Halloween Skeleton and hands that you can stick on the cake. You get some spooky looking rings that can be placed on the cake to add to the spirit of the season.
3D Halloween Luminaries Picks can add another dimension to your cake. The predominant color of the season is orange and black. If you have black icing on the cake and it is a chocolate cake and if you stick orange illuminated sticks on the cake it will really blend in with the atmosphere of Halloween.
Cake decorating Halloween can be a fun filled activity for the entire family and it can be a very enriching experience for all the members of the family.




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