Halloween Cake Fake Raw Mince Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes: 1 tray of fake mince
Ingredients Needed
- 185g/6.5ozs cake flour
- 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarb
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 113g/1 stick softened butter
- 165g/5.8ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons white vinegar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
- 2 teaspoons LorAnn Red Velvet Emulsion
Frosting
- 450g/1lb icing or powdered sugar, sifted
- 130g/4.6ozs cream cheese
- 70g/2.5ozs butter, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 SIFT - Preheat oven to 160C/320F fan forced or 180C/350F conventional and line a 20cm/8inch round pan with parchment on the base and sides. Sift the flour, cocoa, bicarb and salt together in a large bowl.
Step 2 BEAT - With an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (around 3-4 minutes). Add in eggs one at a time beating well between additions.
Step 3 WHISK - In a jug whisk the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and colouring.
Step 4 COMBINE - With mixer on low speed, add in half of the flour mixture and half of the buttermilk mixture and repeat with the remainder of flour and buttermilk until just combined (do not overmix.) Scoop into the prepared tin. Then bake for 35-40 minute or until the centre springs back when gently pressed. Cool on a rack and then wrap in cling film until the next day.
Step 5a FROSTING - To make the frosting beat the butter and cream cheese together until you get a smooth, homogenous mixture. On low speed add in the icing sugar, vanilla and salt and beat until you get a smooth frosting and it is completely combined.
Step 5b THERMOMIX FROSTING - Place the icing sugar in the Thermomix bowl and set to speed #7 for 10 seconds. Then add the butter and cream cheese and set to speed #5 for 15 seconds. Scrape down the sides and set for another 15 seconds at speed #5.
Step 6 FROST - Cut the cake in half horizontally and spread with half of the frosting and then spread the remainder frosting on top.
Step 7 MINCE - With gloved hands, mush up the cake and the frosting together. It should be a pink colour, like raw mince. Set up your meat grinder on a table for the party and push the cake through and leave it hanging from the grinder for the greatest visual effect!
Substitution notes and ingredients:
Cake flour makes softer cakes. For every cup of flour, replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well. You can also buy cake flour at the supermarket.
Usually for intense red velvet cakes I use Lorann red velvet emulsion as it is an intense red but for this one we use less as we don't really want a deep red cake as we want the end result to be a pink colour.
Buttermilk can easily be made by replacing 1 tablespoon of the total milk measurement with vinegar or lemon juice. It will curdle which is what we want.
If you want to make this a cake that can sit out at room temperature you can replace the cream cheese with butter. Buttercream is stable at room temperature.
Personal Note
I originally bought an old fashioned meat mincer for this but I couldn't get it to work. I had bought it on marketplace so I couldn't get a refund so I had to buy a newer one. I think the vintage looking one would have lent a bit more to the effect but it was not to be.
We recently sold some things on marketplace. I get Mr NQN to sell them for us and that means that things take a bit longer because he doesn't check his messages and before long we've missed the selling window. It's a bit frustrating as I've been trying to sell a food processor for a while now. One afternoon someone messaged him about it. We listed it at $199 as the retail price was just under $400 but they asked if the price was negotiable. They offered $130 but we ended up agreeing to $180 and they made arrangements for them to pick it up that evening once they tested it out.
I was in the back of the house with Teddy and Milo because we didn't want them to bark at strangers coming into the house. Mr NQN let them test it out and they paid him and were on their way.
I opened the door and asked him how it went.He picked up the notes and his eyes widened. They had only given him $130. "Are they still there?" I asked him and he said no, he had helped them carry it out to their car and they left shortly after.
He messaged them and I had visions of them blocking him but after a few seconds, three dots appeared and they were writing back to him.
"Oh sorry, wasn't it $130?" they asked.
"No it was $180," replied Mr NQN.
They promised to come back with more money which did they quickly. But a part of me wondered whether they were trying it on or whether it was a genuine mistake. And whenI told my friend Sammie about it she told me that the exact same thing had happened to her!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you think they did it deliberately or was it a mistake? And would you be squeamish or laugh if you saw this red velvet fake mince?
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