Ready to celebrate Halloween? This year I want to surprise you with the Halloween Sweet Coffin: the cocoa and cinnamon plumcake dresses up, becoming monstrous yet remaining the most delicious of all! Shall I tell you a story? Returning from Copenhagen, on the plane, I was studying the new recipes to present here on the blog, and then a flash! Nothing happened, fortunately not even a turbulence, but there, with all those people flying over mountains and sea, we could only make one end if something went wrong. Sure, not positive thoughts, but as they say, from every situation, draw benefits. That’s when the coffin came to mind, the coffin that the Taffo company transformed into a sad business, creating thousands of memes that make us smile!
So here I am, with one of the sweetest and most fragrant plumcakes for breakfast that dresses up for Halloween: there appear skulls, spiders, pumpkins, crosses, and much more. I’ll explain in the recipe and in the video recipe each step, including the creation of the decorations. For any written step that might seem unclear, I invite you to watch the video recipe below the first photo.
Making the plumcake is easy and even easier to transform it into a coffin. Adding the decorations will complete its transformation, its sweet and greedy costume. I used liqueur cherries from Fabbri 1905 and their candied ginger to create the cross with the toothpick. The mint to create the grass and the top of the plumcake that I cut off to create the soil that will be crumbled over the coffin. You can purchase the products of the Fabbri 1905 Family directly in the official store. Before payment, by entering the code FABBRIRICETTEDIBEA20, you will receive a 20% discount dedicated to the readers of my blog!
I chose a cocoa base to have the dark color typical of mahogany wood for the coffins and, since the flight was returning from Copenhagen, I added cinnamon, which I love, and which from Denmark followed me into my kitchen! So get ready for new winter recipes with cinnamon!
Below I leave you the clickable links of the Halloween recipes: from the Collection Halloween Recipes for Kids to the Sweet Halloween Treant that last year conquered everyone! Then there are the puff pastry bats, the pumpkin and cinnamon cookies and the sausage mummies, the only savory recipe for this spectral occasion!
Each link below is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you choose to read! I remind you that I look forward to seeing you every morning in the group and on the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day! An unmissable appointment to start the day with a sweet or savory treat!
No excuses, for October 31st we’ll be ready with lots of recipes to celebrate with the little ones Halloween!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 20 Minutes
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 6People
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, Halloween
- Energy 226.20 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 48.93 (g) of which sugars 15.80 (g)
- Proteins 6.48 (g)
- Fat 2.86 (g) of which saturated 1.21 (g)of which unsaturated 1.61 (g)
- Fibers 6.09 (g)
- Sodium 31.27 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 95 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for a Halloween Sweet Coffin
- 1 2/3 cups flour
- 1/3 cup potato starch (or corn starch)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (in my case, unsweetened)
- 1 packet baking powder (preferably non-vanilla)
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 2/5 cup brown sugar
- 3 eggs (at room temperature)
- 1/4 cup water (at room temperature)
- A few leaves mint (for the final decoration)
- 6 cubes candied ginger (from Fabbri 1905 to create the cross)
- 6 cherries (liqueur cherries from Fabbri 1905 for decoration)
You can substitute water with 1/4 cup of seed oil or with 5 tbsp of softened butter at room temperature, if you prefer. You can vary the brown sugar with the same amount of white sugar.
Tools for making the Halloween Sweet Coffin Plumcake with Cocoa and Cinnamon
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Mixer
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Food Scale
- 1 Plumcake Pan
- 1 Knife
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Toothpick
- 1 Oven
- 1 Thread
Recipe Steps for Halloween Sweet Coffin with Cocoa and Cinnamon
Let’s start preparing the cocoa and cinnamon plumcake by turning on the oven to static mode at 350°F, so it will be nice and hot when we bake the cake.
Take a bowl and crack the eggs into it, add a pinch of salt and the amount of brown sugar. Work with the electric mixer until you get a frothy mixture. Then add the amount of cinnamon.
Now it’s time to add the amount of room temperature water and the amount of unsweetened cocoa powder indicated in the ingredients list.
Mix these ingredients well before proceeding with the flours: soft cake flour, potato starch, and baking powder, preferably non-vanilla. Eliminate any lumps from the batter.
Butter and flour the edges and the bottom of the 25 cm plumcake pan and pour the mixture using a spatula. Level the surface and bake. Let it bake for 25 to 30 minutes, Always do the toothpick test before turning off the oven. My plumcake was perfectly baked at 25 minutes.
Cool at room temperature for at least 20-30 minutes before proceeding with the cuts and Halloween decoration. In the meantime, we create the cross. Break a toothpick, one long part and one shorter part, these will be the two arms of the cross. Tie the two arms with a thread.
Take a knife, take the candied ginger cubes and the liqueur cherries from the Fabbri 1905 jars and place them on a cutting board. Cut the ginger cubes into smaller pieces and skewer them on the cross. In the video recipe, this step is very clear. Then cut the cherries in half, remove the pit, and create small pieces. Wash the mint and tear off a few small leaves, preferably: they will serve as grass to decorate the sweet coffin.
Proceed by cutting the top of the plumcake, the part that always rises and cracks, typical of this sweet, with a sharp knife without a blade. Don’t worry, it won’t go to waste, but will be used to create the final decoration for this sweet cocoa and cinnamon coffin, namely the soil to be crumbled on top.
Then cut two small triangles. Watch the video to understand: essentially we need to obtain the coffin shape. This is possible because, fundamentally, the plumcake is a rectangle and by removing two corners at the end, you already get the shape of a coffin, if you think about it.
With one of these two sides, create the tombstone and place it on top of the coffin. Then place the cross with the ginger cubes. Decorate with mint leaves and cherry pieces. I also added a skull: obviously it’s not edible, so it should be removed before serving the cake at the table.
Crumble with your hands the top part of the plumcake that we cut to create the effect of earth thrown over the coffin and our Halloween cake is ready!
All that’s left is for me to wish you a good appetite and have fun for Halloween with the little ones! I remind you that I’m waiting for you every day here on my cooking blog with lots of easy, quick, and delicious recipes like this one!
Advice, Storage, and Recipe Variations
Recipe Advice: keep the eggs and water at room temperature before using these two ingredients for the recipe. Sift the flours well to avoid creating lumps in the batter. Bake the cake in the center rack of the oven, so it can have the correct temperature during baking. Don’t rush to remove the cake from the oven: the rest of about 30 minutes is necessary to prevent the cake from breaking when we remove it from the mold and especially to allow us to cut and decorate it as we wish.
Storing the Halloween sweet coffin: we can store the cocoa and cinnamon plumcake in a cake container for a couple of days: it will remain soft and fragrant. Of course, I recommend decorating it only when you are sure to serve it at the table, so the ginger doesn’t dry out, and the cherries, and that the mint leaves don’t turn black.
Recipe Variations: as already suggested, you can replace the brown sugar with white sugar. You can use oil or butter to replace the water. You may also remove the cinnamon if you don’t like it. I am crazy about it and, after Denmark and Sweden, I put it everywhere!
