Request granted: Halloweegan Coffin Cake!

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*Creaky door opening slowly*



Yep. I killed another gingerbread-man-shaped dude. Megan requested a coffee flavored coffin cake, and because I'm such a good blogger I happily obliged. I haven't had any coffee-flavored desserts since a mocha cake made me gag when I was five or six years old. So, for this one I went with a mostly chocolaty cake with a *hint* of coffee, just in case I'm still a mocha hater. I used my Strawberry Santa Hats recipe for the cake and the ganache, replacing the oat milk with strong brewed coffee. You can always add a teaspoon or two of instant espresso powder to the cake if you want a stronger coffee flavor.

Any 8 by 8 inch cake will work though. To make the coffins, cut the cake in half so you end up with two 4 by 8 rectangles, and then cut out the corners of each rectangle to shape it like a coffin. Here's a visual:

Cutting the cake

I made one half as a closed coffin and the other half was closed. The open coffin with the gingerbread dude was a bit of work,. A closed coffin cake is definitely less fussy.

Coffin Cake

The closed one requires little work. Just spread the ganache all over the top and sides of both halves of the cake. I piped some leftover-from-last-week chocolate buttercream all around the bottom to make the border look nice and neat. The white cross is a simple powdered sugar icing, and I was *this close* to writing R.I.P on the top when I remembered that I suck at piping letters. Phew!

To make one half/coffin with the gingerbread dude inside, you will need to slice the top 1/3 off the unfrosted cake and slide it over a piece of wax paper. Spread a thick layer of ganache all over the top and freeze it for 10 minutes or until the chocolate is solid. Carefully flip it over so the unfrosted side is up and spread a generous amount of ganache all over the top and sides. Freeze it for another 10 minutes while you frost the bottom 2/3 of the coffin cake and place a poor little gingerbread dude on top. When that's done, peel the frozen cake off the wax paper (if you're going to draw a cross on top, do that first) and place it *cattywampus* over/on the side of the bottom cake. Done!

On non-Halloweegan related news. Are you a Netflix member? Mr. Wing-It and I recently joined and we were getting a bit frustrated with their limited online browsing feature for their streaming movies. But yesterday I found this awesome site that has all of Netfix's available streaming movies neatly organized into categories! YAY! Are we the only Netflix members that were unaware of this goldmine? It's called instantwatcher and it even has a subgenre directory that lets you be as choosy as you want! Foreign movies sorted by country? Check! Horror movies sorted by creepy subject, perfect for Halloween? Check! A subcategory for Super Swashbucklers? Check!

We also bought a Roku Player so we can watch streaming movies on the big TV. And guess what's available on Netflix streaming? My beloved Lost in Austen! Just for that, Netflix gets elebenty brownie points.


blog-love
Today's Blog-Love goes to DJ @ Skint Vegan! If some day someone comes up with an International School for Future Awesome Moms, DJ should be a member of the board of directors! She is raising her children to be punks (her words!) and those two cuties are lucky to have such a cool mom. Or mum. DJ's blog is home to the cutest Hello Kitty cake, the most original Arc de Triomphe costume, and lots of tasty vegan nom noms. Check out DJ's blog!

Follow this link for more vegan Halloween recipes!

Comments

  1. Whaaaa??!! That coffin cake RULES!!!!

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  2. ! I love you and your halloweegan greatness! keep posting!

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  3. river, this is my all time favorite halloweegan. hot stuff! you gonna mofo with us this year, or what?

    xo
    kittee

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  4. this is my favorite!!! so cute and it looks PHENOMENAL!!!

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  5. Oh, River. You just keep getting more and more clever! So cute!
    (Love Lost in Austen!)

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  6. Your coffin cake is so awesome! And I love your dead gingerbread man inside. Your chocolate spiderwebs on the plate are pretty cool too. Looks like the perfect center piece for a Halloween themed party.

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  7. You outdid yourself my friend. this is awesome, in the true sense of the word.

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  8. I know I just say it over and over, but oh the cuteness! I could just gobble up that recently-dead gingerbread person, not to mention its coffee coffin! Love it!

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  9. I'll never think of an "open coffin" in the same way again.

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  10. Your open coffin was so worth your work! Ok, I can say that because I get to enjoy looking at your pictures. Really though, it's awesome!

    Laura

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  11. hiya, High Priestess of Halloweegan! muuuuuuahahhahahaa! hooray for a perfect coffin cake and another great dead dude! i was never one for coffee flavored things as a wee one either, but i have grown to like a hint of it here or there. you are cranking out all kinds of ghouls, ghosts, and other spooooooky delights this Halloweegan, River - i can't get enough! :) every post has me smiling from ear to ear!

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  12. You've done it again. Briiilliant. If you make this again, you should put a raspberry-flavored Dracula inside! :D

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  13. You are completely awesome! I wish I had the time to pay such attention to detail!

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  14. OMG, there's a dead cookie inside!! :DD So amazing:)

    Greets from BFC !!!

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  15. River, you ARE amazing. So creative and fun. Love the Halloweegan theme!

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  16. This is adorable! My kids are going to love it, you also should try green cupcakes for halloween! I love these green tea ones

    http://www.fourgreensteps.com/community/recipes/desserts-a-goodies-/meringue-cupcakes-made-with-matcha-green-tea-powder

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  17. Ack, so wonderfully morbid! This is both cute and creepy; a highly successfully Halloween offering if you ask me!

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  18. most adorable cake ever! also, i'm a netflix person. we watch here on an xbox. i'm going to check out that link though. intriguing.

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  19. AWESOME cake and I'm digging the DJ love. That girl ROCKS!
    :)

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  20. This cake just blew my mind. It looks killer... :)

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  21. Yessss! That looks amazing! You did such a great job with the gingerbread guy, too. I'm going to have to make this cake (ok, admittedly with an upped coffee content, because I'm a fan of mocha) and send a photo. :)
    Thanks for fulfilling my request! I'll make sure to be plenty demanding in future, hehe.

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  22. Diggin the Halloween theme. How do make the time to do all of this?? kudos.

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  23. Love this cake and I think I love it even more because it's chocolate with a hint of my favourite flavour - coffee!! Thankyou for the blog love, btw, you have me blushing over here at Skint Vegan Towers! xo

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  24. Amazing! You really "nailed" this one! ;) (*groan*). Seriously, a work of art. And sounds so yummy, too! We don't have Netflix but I think I am going to have to check it out now that our DVD player died. (No coffin cake for it, though). :D

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  25. Amazing! You really "nailed" this one! ;) (*groan*). Seriously, a work of art. And sounds so yummy, too! We don't have Netflix but I think I am going to have to check it out now that our DVD player died. (No coffin cake for it, though). :D

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  26. Holy yum! That looks so amazing and festive! Thanks for the Netflix link! I totally get frustrated trying to really dig through the watch-it-now stuff.

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  27. That cake looks truly flippin' awesome! So great, River! And thanks for reminding me about instantwatcher!

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