Halloween cake

Method

• step 1

  Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/ gas 3. Butter and line an oblong cake or brownie tin, about 20 x 30cm, with a strip of baking parchment that covers the base.

• step 2

  Beat the butter and sugar with electric beaters or in a mixer until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, flour, almonds, baking powder, milk, cocoa and coffee until smooth. Stir in the chips, then scoop the batter into the tin. Bake for 25-30 mins until risen and a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

• step 3

  Meanwhile, to make the eyes, mix 4 tbsp of the icing sugar with enough water to make a pipeable paste, colour it orange, red, yellow or green. Scrape it into a piping bag with a small nozzle, or snipped end, and pipe round eyes the size of 1p piece (or bigger or smaller if you like) on a piece of baking parchment. Leave to dry. Mix 2 tbsp if icing sugar with some black colouring (and a little water if you need) to a similar consistency and pipe pupils onto each one. Leave to dry. Alternatively, you can buy edible eyes (colour the whites if you like) and stick them on with a little icing.

• step 4

  Beat the butter for the frosting with the icing sugar, and spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a ribbon nozzle. Arrange the eyes on the cake in pairs. Pipe the icing, in ribbons, back and forth across the cake to make the bandages.