Dubai chocolate caterpillar cake and a Halloween lunch

 

Early in November, we had a small lunch for family to remember our sons, Alex and Ian. I wanted an easy cake and decided on a classic caterpillar based on one I used to admire in The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.  In the end it was quite different.  Ours was a cake for an adult gathering so we took inspiration from the Dubai chocolate sensation and sandwiched two chocolate brownie cupcakes together with Dubai spread which were covered with pistachio frosting and coconut.  They were amazing.  Sylvia also did a very impressive savoury Halloween platter and few sweet Halloween treats.

Dubai chocolate caterpillar cake  

My inspiration started with a Dubai chocolate cake I wanted to make.  Sylvia wanted a Hungry Caterpillar cake.  That meant lots of different greens in the body and more detail in the face.  We compromised with a hairy caterpillar cake from the Women's Weekly with the Dubai chocolate flavours.  The energy I saved on having a simple caterpillar cake was instead required for the complexity of the Dubai chocolate components.  I tried to minimise the work I needed to do on the day.

The chocolate cupcakes were made the previous night.  They had to be intensely chocolate. I found a brownie cupcake I had made previously because it had so much melted chocolate.  In my notes I had written it was a bit dry.  This time I cooked it for 20 minutes but it was still on the dry side.  I read a post on brownie cupcakes that advised that it should cook til the crumbs (not wet batter) cling to the skewer and it if got dry it cooked too much.  I tried these cupcakes again for 15 minutes and found them a nice soft almost fudgy consistency but the skewer came out clean.  There is a delicate balance between getting the cupcakes to hold their shape but not having them dry.

The Dubai spread (aka Dubai chocolate cream or Dubai pistachio crunch to name a few alternatives) sounds quite easy. The pistachio cream is a blend of white chocolate and pistachios in a similar way that nutella is a blend of milk chocolate and hazelnuts. To make the spread, I intended to fry the defrosted packet of the thin strands known as Kataifi pastry and mix with the pistachio cream.  On the day of the lunch I was tired enough to return to our local Al Alamy Middle Eastern grocery and buy a jar of the Bayt al Helou Dubai spread so I could skip that step.

 

Now I also had the pistachio cream that I had bought at Al Alamy the day before the lunch when I had been more optimistic about my energy levels.  It was not wasted.  I had also intended to add it to a buttercream frosting to make our pistachio frosting.  This ended up super sweet.  A bit of salt tamed it.  I had liked the suggestion of a spoonful of tahini but Sylvia was not keen.  The colour was a light mustard yellow with hint of green.  I added a couple of drops of a good green food dye and liked the look much better.  

I was not sure how thick the frosting had to be to cover the chocolate cupcakes.  I considered dipping them like lamingtons but worried that the pistachio cream would be too watered down to make any impact.  The thicker pistachio cream worked well with the slightly dry cupcakes to add the creaminess they needed.
 

 

Putting the cupcakes together was messy work.   Initially I had planned to make domed cupcakes and dig out a little plug of chocolate cake so I could fill the hole with Dubai spread and then return the plug in place like these pistachio cupcakes.  into the cupcake.  My half spheres of cupcake were too small so I trimmed the flat end and sandwiched Dubai spread between them. It was a really stiff spread that needed some oomph to spread it.  The mixture of creamy pistachio cream and crunchy kataifi pastry strands tasted so amazing it was tempting to abandon the cake and just eat the jar of spread.

I ended up with only 7 balls by which time they seemed long enough for a caterpillar and plenty to feed our small group of 5 people.  They were very rich and we had leftovers after the lunch.  I really loved these cupcake balls with lots of crunchy Dubai spread and creamy pistachio frosting giving style to the chocolate cupcakes.  

Savoury Halloween Treats 

 

I was able to concentrate on the cake while Sylvia made the rest of the lunch.  She loves Halloween food and made some recipes she has made before like the pumpkin cheese ball and she also tried out a few new ideas like the jalapeno poppers and apple teeth.  I just arranged them on the platter with a couple of plate for some sweet treats.  Here is a rundown of what she made:

caterpullar, apple teeth - biscoff, rice bubbles, strawberry tongues,  oreo bats, mummy japapeno poppers, cheese pumpkin, cucumber ghosts, carrot ghosts 

 

Witches fingers: vegetarian sausages were wrapped in sheets of puff pastry with lines scored by a sharp knife.  At this point they were frozen overnight.  The net day Sylvia put a blob of tomato sauce (ketchup) on one end and placed an almond half on the the sauce.  They were baked from frozen in a hot oven until  golden brown.  We didn't consider glazing them before they went in the oven and I am still unsure if we should have.  They were very popular!

 

Mummy jalapeno poppers:  We could not find jalapenos so Sylvia halved mini capsicums instead.  She mixed cream cheese with chill paste, smoked paprika and stock powder.  This was stuffed in the capsicum halves which were then wrapped in strips of puff pastry like mummies and gave them slices of olives stuffed with piemento.  Then we baked them til the pastry was golden brown.

 

Jack Skellington brie: Sylvia used a sharp knife and a steady hand to cut a Jack Skellington face in a round of brie and fill the holes with berry jam.  It made an impressive centrepiece for the platter.

Ghost carrots and cucumbers: Sylvia cut thin slices of carrot and cucumber.  Then she made a zig zag line at the bottom of each and use a metal straw to cut out the eyes and mouths .  Bits of vegetables got stuck in the straw and she had to blow a few out.  They added fresh vegetables, colour and a touch of spookiness to the platter.

Pumpkin cheese ball: Sylvia mixed cream cheese with grated red leicester cheese, grated smoked cheddar cheese, chopped olives and chilli paste (which she used instead of the chopped pickled jalapenos that she usually uses).  Then she spread out a large square of clingwrap on the table, scattered it with grated red leicester cheese and wrapped it up in a ball.  She wrapped a few rubber bands around it to make pumpkin-like indents and let it firm up in the fridge overnight.  When she served it, she unwrapped it and added a stalk from a capsicum on top.  It was so delicious!

Sweet Halloween Treats 

Oreo bats: Sylvia took a third of the oreos and twisted them apart into two biscuits.  Then she cut them in half.  The other two third of the oreos were twisted apart.  She used pistachio paste to glue down the two halves as wings and pressed the other half of the cookie on top.  (She says next time she would used melted chocolate so it would harden up and keep them in place better.)  She found the pistachio paste good for adding candy eyes and choc chip eyebrows. These were pretty easy and cute.

Apple mouths: Sylvia cut green apples in eighths (fourths were too chunky).  Then she cut a wedge out of the skinned edge and covered the insides with pistachio spread.  She cut the strawberries into strips that were thin enough to curl and arranged them on the  pistachio spread like a tongue.  The she placed rice bubbles (rice krispies) around the edge of the pistachio spread like teeth.  They were a nice fruity snack but the pistachio paste was quite sweet.
 

Postscript - comparison with the Women's Weekly's caterpillar cake

Before posting this I realised I had only briefly looked at the picture in the Women's Weekly children's birthday cake book.  So I read the recipe properly and found that their cake is called a Crawly Caterpillar cake and hadn't that much in common with my fancier cake.  Their cake is a vanilla cake I never liked a lot and they cover it in"vienna cream' and green dyed shredded coconut.  It looks much meaner than my caterpillar and a bit silly with the cardboard bonnet.  I always loved the look of it until I had my own caterpillar cake.  

Their directions are so much simpler than my own.  I was initially confused by their instructions to "press fork in sides of cake, cover entire cakes with Vienna cream".  Then I realised they meant to stick a fork in so you could hold the cake a loft while you covered each little cake in icing/frosting.  The writing back then might have been far briefer because print is so much more limited than online but they did have good ideas.  I will definitely try sticking a cake on a fork if I make this again! the cake

If I made this cake for kids I would make a boring vanilla cake because kids are far more interested in a fun looking cake than a great tasting cake and no one does nuts for kids birthdays these days.  However I don't have as many kids to make cakes for any more so I am happy to spend a bit more time on a delicious cake with a simple decoration, even though my teenage kid had made me promise to do a proper Hungry Caterpillar cake soon!  Watch this space!

More fun cakes on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog that are suitable for adults:

Aboriginal flag cake 
Choc Mint Drip cake with candy mountain 
Halloween cake - eyes in the dark 
Medieval castle cake for chocolate lovers
Vegemite jar cake

Dubai chocolate caterpillar cake 
A Green Gourmet Giraffe original recipe

• 12-24 round/domed chocolate brownie cupcakes - see below
• Pistachio frosting - see below
• Desiccated coconut - about 1 cup
• 1/2 to 1 cup Dubai paste (pistachio cream mixed with fried katafi pastry)
• 2 candy eyes, choc chips or raisins to be eyes
• 2 toothpicks 

If you your brownie cupcakes are regular size cupcakes, slice in half.  Prepare your half spheres or half cupcakes if necessary trim the flat edge to be smooth and even for spreading.  

Take a generous spoonful of Dubai paste and spread over the flat edge of a cupcake half sphere and sandwich together with another sphere.  You might need to smooth the Dubai paste at the join of the half spheres if it is jagged and sticking out.  

Spread frosting around the edge of the ball and roll in coconut.  I found that handling the ball with my fingers left dints in the balls.  I would try using two forks next time to minimise the marks from handling.  (If the cake was sturdy enough, I would try to stick a fork in so that it could hold the cake aloft or in place while I covered it in the frosting.  (See discussion of the Women's Weekly recipe in the introductory text.)

Arrange the balls on a plate (I only used 7 balls but could have used more if there were more people at the lunch).  At one end stick the choc chips or candy eyes or raisins on with extra frosting to a ball to represent eyes.  Stick toothpicks in to be like antennae.

Chocolate brownie cupcakes
Adapted from Cupcakes Galore via Green Gourmet Giraffe 
Makes 24 small cupcakes or 12 regular cupcakes

180g chocolate
80g butter
120g brown sugar
2 eggs
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt 

Preheat oven to 180 C and grease or line 1-2 x 12 hole cupcake trays (The tray I used is known as a gem scone baking tray in Australia but was not a heavy cast iron.  It has half sphere holes.  For the brownie cupcakes a silicone tray would be better than a cast iron tray which is common in gem scone baking trays because you want brownies under rather than over baked.  I didn't quite fill each hole and I got 2 x 12 trays of the small cupcakes.  Alternatively you could do 12 cupcakes and split them in half but your tray might not give the round shape that my tray gave.)

Melt butter, chocolate and sugar.  Stir in eggs one at a time to make it glossy and thick. Gently stir in flour, baking powder and salt until combined.  

Spoon mixture into prepared cupcake holes so they are only about 2/3 full.  Bake for 12 to 16 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out with some crumbs on it. (If the skewer is clean it is too dry.)  Cool on a wire rack 

Pistachio buttercream frosting 
adapted from Annika Eats

1/2 (125g) cup butter, softened
1/2 cup pistachio cream
1 tbsp tahini (optional)
1 1/4 cup icing sugar (aka powdered sugar)
1/8 tsp fine salt
1-2 drops of green food dye (optional)

Use electric beaters to beat the butter and pistachio cream (and tahini if using) until creamy.  Gradually add the icing sugar, a few dessertspoons at a time, and then salt until well mixed.  If you want the cream to be greener, add a drop or two of green food dye.

On the Stereo:
Eyes Open: Snow Patrol