Time to Get Spooky

I spent Sunday morning putting up Halloween decorations outside the house while sweating profusely because it was 90 degrees with over 75% humidity at 9:30 a.m. I was determined to at least make the house look spooky even if it doesn't feel spooky outside...really, it feels *terrifying* outside because it should not still be over 90, even in Florida, when it's October. Shortly after I finished putting up outside Halloween decor, I went for a swim in our pool...Fall is weird in the South. But heat be damned (seriously), I was in the spooky spirit, so I decided it was time for the first creepy Halloween bake as well. Derek bought me a mini skull cake pan for my birthday back in JANUARY, and in what I consider to be the greatest restraint I have ever shown in my life, I waited until September 30 to use it. I honestly couldn't come up with another holiday where skull cakes would be an appropriate bake before October, but know I was tempted to try leprechaun skulls for St. Patrick's Day or Founding Father's president skulls for July 4th. Be glad I opted to wait until October.

Especially since there's an oozing brain aspect.

Oh yes, I should probably warn anyone with a weak gag reflex that these are red velvet skull cakes oozing with bloody brains cheesecake filling and the most adorably creepy M&M eyes. My bad...the spooky spirit just carries me away. I am a sucker for a good lava cake, and I had never attempted a no-bake cheesecake filling as my lava, but I am extremely happy to report that it works excellently as a lava ooze. And red velvet + cream cheese anything = transcendental dessert experience. I am glad these were not the exception to that rule because even as grotesquely awesome as they look, I need my cake to taste like heaven, not hell. I ended up with 10 mini skulls and leftover cheesecake bombs (a flavor explosion), and one delightfully macabre little skull will only set you back 250 calories. All things are possible when you're filled with the Spirit of Halloween.

And sugar-free everything.

This is an INSANELY easy recipe, you just need to make the cheesecake filling several hours ahead of time so it can freeze. So start by putting together:

• 8 ounces 1/3 fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of Swerve granular
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 ounces Cool Whip Free
• Red and black gel dyes 

Mix together the cream cheese and Swerve until completely blended, 2 minutes. Add in the extract and Cool Whip and fold in on low. Now, because I forgot I used twelve bottles of red gel dye for Derek's lumberjack birthday cake, I had to use a combo of red food coloring and black gel dye to achieve a maroon-purple brain matter combo color. Mix in on low then set your mixing bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up the batter.

The leftover cheesecake bombs have been making snack time a real joy this week.

 Now, line a small tray with nonstick paper and grab a cookie scoop. Scoop little mounds of the filling onto the sheet until you have 12 bombs. I only needed 9 but this was because I used too much batter in my first round of cakes...I had never used this pan before and wasn't totally sure how full it needed to be, so some of my skulls are huge (must have had large egos in their mortal life). Now, place these in the freezer until completely frozen. I left these covered in plastic wrap overnight.

Also could be Terminator skulls.

THIS PAN has made my spookiest baking dreams come true. Hefty price tag, but it is a solid piece of construction and will probably outlive me.

Prepping it takes the longest time out of any other aspect of this recipe.

 The instructions that came with the pan specifically state regular Pam won't do for these details, so either a cooking spray with flour in it or prep the pan the old fashioned way: with so much Crisco or butter it'll never truly be grease-free again. I used one of my food-designated paint brushes to get into all the nooks and crannies of the pan, ensuring each little crevice had more Crisco than it could possibly really need.

Not dirt. I'm not that authentically creepy.

Then I dusted this with cocoa. You could use flour, but that would lighten the cakes. So if you want a white cake + extra white coating, using flour. I opted for cocoa powder on some and dark cocoa powder on another batch to have super deep shades of reddish black. Now, on to the cake!

I had to settle for Duncan. Betty was missing on the grocery shelf.

For the cake, you need:

• 1 box red velvet mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk

Preheat your oven to 350 and dump your ingredients in a stand mixer. Blend on low for 30 seconds then switch to medium-high for 2 minutes. Once everything is gelled together, grab a liquid measuring cup and pour some of the batter into it. Fill each skull a little over halfway full, then go grab those frozen cheesecake bombs.

Carefully place into the center of the skull.

Then use a small spatula to cover up the filling completely.

 I baked these for 25 minutes and they were cooked to perfection. This first batch was wayyyyy too full, so my cheesecake filling oozed out a bit and some skulls were quite large.

Ugh, but it still looked like it was going to be nightmare fuel when I took them out of the pan (I mean that in a good way).

I let them rest in the pan for 10 minutes before placing a cooling rack on top of them and inverting the pan. I left everything like this for another 5 minutes to let things cool, de-puff, and release from the pan on their own.

I was squealing with glee at this point while chanting, "So spooky," repeatedly. This is probably the most jovial I've been since, well, last Halloween.

Pre-double-chin trimming.

 I let these cool completely on cooling racks while I washed out my pan, greased and added cocoa again, and then used the rest of my cake batter and cheesecake bombs to cook the next batch. Once cooled, I trimmed the little excess borders to thin out the skulls. I had originally intended to use candy melts to coat some of these white and others black, but I didn't like how much detail got lost under the candy melts, so I only made three with coating.

Peanut butter M&M's are my new obsession, btw.

If you want to coat them anyway, I used about half a cup of white candy melts with 2 TBS of skim milk melted together for 1 minute in the microwave on 50% power. I whisked like crazy until smooth and let it rest 5 minutes before dumping into a liquid measuring cup and pouring ganache over the skulls.

Meh.

It doesn't look terrible, but it doesn't look scary enough either. Maybe if I hadn't thinned out the ganache with milk and just used the candy melts, but that's a problem for next year. The eyes and nose sockets held on to way too much ganache as well, so the M&M's wouldnt really fit into the eye sockets, ruining my plans to make things creepy.

No worries though, they're perfectly ghastly without ganache.

 I placed different colors of M&M's special Ghoul Mix into each skull's eye sockets, and presto, cakes that would scare small children! A crowning achievement in my opinion.

I thought about naming them, but then I wouldn't want to eat them.

Ideally, you want to serve these right away while the cheesecake filling inside is still hot and liquid. If you need to, simply pop them into the microwave for 20 seconds to heat the cheesecake bombs back up into lava status. You can also forgo the M&M's and just dust with powdered sugar to serve quickly as well. I went with M&M's because I'm told they only melt in your mouth, and not in your skull cake's eye sockets. This was indeed factual.

The best brains I've ever eaten.

I am so giddy these all came out of the pan in one piece, and even happier the lava action is so ghoulish and ghastly. The gross-out factor is something I go full tilt with during Halloween, so it's the one time of the year pretty gorgeous gets the boot for pretty gnarly. Since we're not huge fans of super sweet frosting in my house, having these plain red velvet cakes filled with cheesecake bombs is absolutely the proper amount of sweetness. The cake is nice and mildly chocolatey and the cheesecake is smooth and creamy. It's going to be tricky not to eat three of these at a time, but I'll manage...mostly because I still have a full bag of peanut butter M&M's which I did not know were a thing, and now I can't live my life without them. I am looking forward to fall temps EVENTUALLY showing up in Florida, but until then, my kitchen is ground zero for all things terrifying and delicious. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Stare long enough,and they'll steal your soul...