"Well, Well, Well, What Have We Here?"

I think we're all painfully aware at this point that 2020 is pretty much a sack filled with horrors (all things considered, I'm extremely glad murder hornets didn't become a bigger problem). I also happen to be a huge fan of another stitched up sack of gross curiosities- Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. I found myself singing "Oogie Boogie's Song" last week and realized that it's probably THE theme song for this year...for a multitude of reasons. Anyway, when a giant sack filled with worms and spiders tells you to watch out, you should definitely take heed. And while Jack Skellington will always own my heart (no, it's not weird that I have a lifelong crush on a cartoon skeleton- he's suave, creative, and smartly dressed), I feel like if any year deserves to be the year of the Boogie Man, it's this one.

This is not filled with spiders--just topped with them. Big difference.

Guys, it could realistically be none more black than this...and that's thanks to the magic ingredient: black cocoa powder. I can finally give you a visual reference to the color of my heart and soul, and it's thanks to chocolate. This is both the definition of irony and totally appropriate. This black velvet cake and tribute to the Oogie Boogie Man is filled with black cocoa powder both in the cake and in the chocolate cream cheese frosting (I am addicted to it). It tastes EXACTLY LIKE A GIANT OREO. I am convinced the folks at Nabisco have been harboring this as a secret, but black cocoa gives a richness that truly tastes exactly like everyone's favorite sandwich cookie--except mine is in cake form (and gluten free), making it at least 75% better than an Oreo. It's also only 280 calories a slice (9 slices total), or the equivalent of a meager 4 Oreo cookies. Black velvet cake is now a staple recipe in this house.

The hardest part of baking this cake is finding black cocoa powder.

It's awesome that this is so easy to throw together because I'm going to need to make one of these a month until I die. You need:

• 1 1/4 cups Lakanto monkfruit or Swerve Granular
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  
• 2 eggs at room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• A dash of salt
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup + 2 TBS buttermilk (omit the 2 TBS if you're using regular flour; the gluten free flour needs a little more moisture)
• 1/2 cup of hot water (I used my Keurig to brew hot water, but a sauce pan or microwave will work)
• 1/2 cup of black cocoa (link above to purchase on Amazon) 
• 1 1/2 cups of Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Flour Blend (or All Purpose if you're fortunate enough to not have a stomach that revolts near bread)

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and greasing two 8-inch round or square pans and lining with Parchment paper...I tried making this in only one 8-inch square pan, and it took forever to cook and my edges got dry and crumbly, so definitely split this into two pans. Blend the applesauce and sugar on medium-high in a stand mixer for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture looks a little fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, blending til fully incorporated. Then add in the extract, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

While things are mixing together, in a separate bowl, whisk together the hot water and buttermilk. Then whisk in the black cocoa powder until absolutely no lumps remain. Measure out your flour in another bowl.

Now, add 1/3 of the flour to your stand mixer bowl, blending until fully mixed in. Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add 1/2 of the cocoa mix, blending on low so you don't make a huge mess. Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add another 1/3 of flour, blend, then the remaining 1/2 of the cocoa mix, blend, and finish with the last of the flour. Mix until things have come together nicely on medium-high. Pour into your 2 prepared pans.

See, same color as an Oreo.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, testing with a toothpick. If you only have a few crumbs, remove from the oven. If the toothpick is still very wet with batter, continue baking another 3-5 minutes. Keeping the cakes in the pans, place onto a cooling rack for 10 minutes before running an angled spatula or dull knife around the edges of the pan before turning out on the cooling racks to cool completely. I placed my cake in the freeze for 15 minutes before leveling since it domed up on me (again, too much batter for one single pan, don't make the same mistake).

It looks a little sad with half of its head cut off, but look at that black cocoa magic!

Now, set this aside to finish cooling completely while you make what is, quite literally, the best chocolate frosting that ever existed.

Seriously, my only regret is it took 33 years to find out about black cocoa powder.

For the blackest of black, so-dark-it-could-be-an-endless-void cream cheese frosting, you need:

• 8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup of light butter at room temp (I used Land O Lakes)
• 4 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit (or regular powdered sugar if you aren't watching your intake)
  
• 1/2 cup of black cocoa powder
• 1 TBS of vanilla
• 2-3 TBS skim milk
• Black and lime green gel dyes

You're going to be splitting this frosting up to dye two different colors, so keep that in mind. Begin by mixing the cream cheese and butter together until fluffy, for about 3 minutes. Add in 2 cups of powdered monkfruit, mixing on low at first to avoid an explosion, then switch to medium-high until blended. Add in the vanilla extract and remaining powdered monkfruit, blending well. Now, take about 1/3 of the frosting and put it aside in a bowl, this will need to get several drops of  lime green gel dye mixed into it for Ooogie Boogie. Cover with a paper towel until ready to use. Now, turn your attention back to the rest of the frosting. Add in the black cocoa powder and at least 2 TBS of skim milk to thin this out so it is a spreadable consistency. Mix well, and if you see it's still incredibly thick (hard to stir with a spatula by hand), add another TBS of skim milk. Then add in a few drops of black gel dye to make this frosting so black you could lose an entire coven of witches in it. Now, on to the knives!

It's a Boogie Man cake, of course we're going to play with knives to create it.

A face only Lock, Shock, and Barrel could love.

For my Oogie Boogie, I sketched him out on Parchment paper with the help of an Oogie Boogie pumpkin carving template sized down to fit the top of my cake. You're also going to need an X-acto knife, scissors, fun Halloween sprinkles (Spooky Sprinkles!), and either a few palette knives or angled spatulas to make Oogie, boogie, to life. I really wanted to use some gummy worms with this cake, but I could only find Trolli's, and they look absolutely NOTHING like real worms, so consider me very disappointed. Sorry, Oogie.

He's no Jack Skellington, but he's a handsome devil in his own right.

Put your template down on a cutting mat or board, and use the X-acto knife to cut out his mouth, eyes, and the inside of the O'S and the G. Save these pieces!! You need them later. You also need to cut out the rest of the letters, but you don't need to keep these. Also cut out his silhouette (I used scissors because I considered it extremely fortunate I hadn't lost the tip of a finger to the X-acto at this point). You should pretty much have a reverse image:

"You're jokin', you're jokin'
I can't believe my eyes!"

You can set this aside while you frost the completely cooled cake with the blacker-than-a-black-hole portion of frosting. Since you'll have two layers, place one layer down on a cake board before spread a decent amount of frosting on the top of it, then add the second layer, and completely cover the entire cake in the black frosting. You'll probably use all of the black frosting (and will lick the bowl for the rest). This does crust, so if you want to smooth it out with the paper towel trick, you totally can. I kept things a little messy because this is a cake tribute to a creature that vomits worms, so neatness was not my concern.

Time to get sprinkly!

Now, place your cake on a large baking tray so you don't get sprinkles EVERYWHERE. I cleaned my house the day after I made this, and not gonna lie, I found sprinkles in a 100-foot radius of my kitchen, but I sprinkle with gusto.

I needed a bigger tray, apparently.

I used a Halloween mix of sprinkles, all by Wilton and found at a craft store. I used a mix of black, purple, and green sprinkles, pouring a handful into my palm before gently pressing on the sides of the cake. Once I was done with that, I came back in and gently placed skull sprinkles at the top of the border:

I mean, look at that frosting. Black velvet, indeed.

Once you're done making a mess your dogs will be so happy to help you clean up, place your template on top of the cake.

I was giddy with delight at this point.

I used toothpicks to help nail down my template, and to help me keep track of where the smaller pieces like the eyes, mouth, and insides of the letters were placed on my cake. I also used a paintbrush and an angled spatula to push my template down into the frosting a bit. You just want to make sure there are ZERO gaps (ah Zero, easily the best character of Nightmare Before Christmas). I put my cake in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow my black frosting to crust up so it wouldn't bleed too much into the green.

I think I also found the Nickelodeon slime recipe?

Using a very skinny palette knife, I slathered a thick layer of green frosting over OOGIE, only marginally spreading to even it out. Again, a sack of horrors cake does not require smoothed perfection, but if you're feeling twitchy about that, use an angled spatula to swipe everything perfectly even...I will always make an exception for OCD.

Definitely slime. The jig is up, Nick.

Come back in with more green frosting and gently spread over the rest of Oogie's body, eyes, and mouth. You want to apply minimal pressure while you're spreading out the green frosting so you don't disrupt the template. Now comes the terrifyingly fun part!

Oh we're getting spooky, alright.

Using the toothpicks, gently wiggle the templates straight up and away so as not to disturb the green frosting. I also used a very pointy palette knife to help with larger pieces. Repeat until you unmask the Boogie Man in all his grotesque glory:

Oh heeeyyyy, nightmare fuel.

I ended up not using the Trolli's since they looked more like pencils than worms, but if you can find real gummy worms, you could stick one coming out of Oogie's mouth, and then spread some around the top of the cake. I ended up using the leftover green frosting to outfit Oogie in his second favorite critter, spiders.

He needs them to bake a special batch of his snake and spider stew.

I put a coupler on a piping bag, filled it with my green frosting, and alternated between a round 12, 5, and 2 tip to make my spiders. Starting with the #12 tip, I piped little circular blobs around the cake.

Only in the month of October do I condone "spidering" your baked goods.

Switch over to the #5 tip, then add little blobs in front of the body to make the spider's head.

But wait, there's gore more!

To finish, switch to the #2 tip and pipe 8 little legs on each spider in straight-ish lines.

He's...cute?

To make them less terrifying (I have to eat this cake after all, and I HATE SPIDERS), I used little individual sprinkles to give my spiders TWO, ONLY TWO eyes. They're far less shiver-inducing with only two ojos and not eight. Although I do admire the symmetry of having eight legs and eight eyes, this is where my respect for spiders ends.

Oh, good sir, you are delightfully awful.

I am SO happy with a multitude of things about this cake: it is so black it could use a nightlight, Oogie is so creepy he could spring off the cake to gamble with you (or your life), and it tastes like the world's greatest Oreo. *Insert any color* velvet cakes are always so dense, and this is definitely no exception. I don't make velvet cakes often since I do prefer a lighter sponge, but since this cake tastes exactly like an Oreo, it pairs excellently with a glass of milk to wash it down. I went on and on in the last blog about a regular chocolate cream cheese frosting, but black cocoa powder makes that batch the poor man's chocolate cream cheese frosting for sure. This is silky, creamy, and deeply chocolately. It isn't like a light cocoa vs dark cocoa flavor; black cocoa frosting is not at all bitter like a bar of dark chocolate. It gives a real richness that pretty much makes the frosting and cake party on your taste buds. Since trick-or-treating is probably out this year (the true horror here is 2020, not my terrible puns), you could just make this cake instead and reluctantly share it with your children. Definitely keep your cake in the fridge for as long as it lasts to keep the cream cheese frosting firm.

I, on the other hand, refuse to share.

I had to put a few slices in the freezer while my husband is out of town this week...there's no way it would still exist anywhere else but in my stomach if I didn't, and I want him to have the giant Oreo cake experience because although I am evil, I'm not mean...there is a difference. It's the thinnest of lines, but even villains have their moments of kindness. You know, like when Oogie didn't actually kill Santa Claus. He just sang about how he wanted to instead; see, thin line. 'Til next time my fellow eaters!

If I eat another slice, "I might just split a seam..."