Juliet Sear's bat wing tortillas with blood salsa and piñata pumpkin cake
With retailers expecting us to spend over £320 million on Halloween this year, it can certainly be a scary-time for your bank balance - but Juliet Sear has has some ghoulish treats you can make at home. From tortilla bats to a piñata pumpkin cake - these treats are guaranteed to keep even the scariest monsters quiet.
Bat wing tortillas
Serves: 8
Ingredients
1 red chilli, deseeded1 small handful of fresh coriander leaves1 small red onion6 very ripe tomatoes, quarteredAdd the juice of half a limeA splash of Tabasco sauceSalt, to taste1-2 tablespoons of ketchup
Method
For the bat wing tortillas: Take a tortilla wrap and cut the shapes using a cookie cutter. We used a bat shaped cookie cutter but you can cut any shape you like. Alternatively use a bat shaped stencil and cut around it with a knife.
Place the shapes onto a baking tray and brush the shapes with a little oil, you can sprinkle over poppy seeds, sprinkle with paprika, or a little Parmesan if you like.
Bake the tortilla shapes in the oven for 10 minutes at 160c until brown and crispy.
For the salsa: This can all be made by finely chopping, combining if required, or if you have a food processor or mini chopper, you can do it quickly like this.
Finely chop or blitz in a food processor red chilli, fresh coriander leaves and the red onion.
Add the ripe tomatoes and pulse again so it goes chunky.
Add the juice of half a lime, a slosh of Tabasco and salt to taste, stir through.
If you like, to make the salsa more gory, process to a much finer consistency and stir in 1-2 tablespoons of ketchup to give a more bloody appearance.
Pumpkin piñata cake
Serves: 8-10
Ingredients
For the cake:
750g soft butter750g golden caster sugar1 tbsp vanilla paste15 eggs750g self-raising flour2 tsp baking powder
For the butter cream:
400g soft unsalted butter800g icing sugar1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
For decoration:
A selection of Halloween sweets to fill the centre1.25-1.5 kg of orange fondant icing200g brown or chocolate fondant icing200g green fondant icing100g black fondant icing12 or 14" round large cake drum or stand
Method
Preheat the oven to 160C / 150 Fan, Gas 3. Grease two fluted ring cake tins, each approximately 24.5cm diameter and 8.5cm deep.
To make the cake, cream together the butter, caster sugar and vanilla bean paste until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs and beat together. Fold in the flour and baking powder.
Fill the cake tins just over two-thirds full. Bake for 70 – 80 minutes, or until cooked and golden brown. If the cakes start to brown too much on top before they are fully cooked through, cover with foil.
Once cooked, remove from the oven and then turn out onto a cooling rack once cool enough to handle. Leave to completely cool.
Meanwhile, make the butter cream: whisk the butter in a large bowl until soft. Gradually add the icing sugar with the vanilla bean paste until light and fluffy.
To decorate the cake, sandwich the cake together with buttercream and fill the centre with sweets of your choice. Cover over with a thin layer of buttercream to crumb-coat the sponge.
Add a little jam or more buttercream to help stick on the icing.
Roll out the icing to a large round piece, about 4-5mm thick. Lay over the top of the cake and smooth down the sides with your hands, tucking under the cake as neatly as you can. Trim off any excess.
Using your fingers or a modelling tool, make the grooves to create the pumpkin lines effect.
To decorate, take a piece of brown fondant icing and make a stem. Roll out the green icing and cut out hearts or leaf shapes. Add these to the top of the pumpkin using a few thin sausages of remaining green icing to create tendrils to fall down the cake. Stick the leaves against these.
For the face, roll out the black icing, create large circles or any shape for the eyes, and add your mouth/teeth in a scary style, using a thin strip across the face with smaller to cross over, or add various teeth shapes, be as creative as you wish!