Fat Rat Cakes for Halloween
Fat Rats - Easy No-bake Cakes for Halloween
Need some Halloween party ideas? These fat rat and mini mouse cakes for Halloween will make the kids squirm with - (delight?). It is just so delicious, quick and easy cake recipe.
I've based this recipe on the cakes that we used to love as children. We called them 'rum truffles' and this is a no-bake cake. You heard me right. Just mixing and modeling, and making the rat shape if the really fun bit.
This cake is economical too. You can use up old and leftover cake. These heavy, moist balls covered in chocolate vermicelli and reeking of alcohol were really ways for bakers to use up and re-sell all the left-over cakes of the day. "Waste not want not" - we adored them.
I run Les Trois Chenes, a B&B, holiday cottage and painting holidays in Videix, Limousin, France so I'm always on the lookout for holiday celebration ideas and as I was casting around for quick and easy Halloween party foods that the children could help to make themselves I came up with this rat idea. Of course, if you don't like rats - how about a cat cake? It would be great for other celebrations too.
TIP: If the fat rat is too much for you, though, why not make mini mouse cakes instead?
Why not drop in if you're in the area?
All content and images, unless otherwise attributed, are the property of Barbara Walton
Ingredients for the Fat Rat and Mini Mouse Halloween Cakes
It's basically a rum truffle recipe
To make this scrummy, scary cake you'll need the following:
* Plain, cheapish supermarket cake, or your own leftover cake. I used most of this cake
* Cooking chocolate (I used one slab of chocolate and most of this cake)
* A dash of milk
* Pink marzipan for tail and ears. Green or white marzipan or something else to make eyes; cake baubles, little sweets etc
* Flavouring: Orange or almond for the kids, rum or amaretto flavouring or the real thing for adults
* A fine paint brush
* Brown or black food colouring or red, yellow and blue colouring mixed together
* 'Whiskers' from a new washing up brush or similar
Need More Halloween Cake and Recipe Ideas? - Try these weird cupcake recipes
How to Make Your Chocolate Rat Halloween Cake
Easy step-by-step instructions
Melt the Chocolate
Put the milk and chocolate broken into squares into a saucepan over a low heat. Melt the chocolate slowly, stirring all the time, or, to do it properly, part fill the pan with water and bring it to the boil. Put the chocolate in a basin, put the basin in the water and stir until melted. There's less chance of it burning like this.
Add the Cake
Crumble the cake and stir into the melted chocolate. Continue to crumble and stir until all the cake is covered with chocolate and you have a sort of paste that is firm enough to mould with your hands into a rat.
Make the Rat Body and Cover with Choc Bits
Chocolate vermicelli
Let the mixture cool a little until it's firm enough to mould into a rat shape and roll in the chocolate vermicelli. Shape the face into a point.
Ears and eyes
Make ears out of the pink marzipan by making balls, squashing one end between finger and thumb and then pinching the other end together. Make a hole in the rat's head and insert the ears.
For the eyes, make little balls with the green or white marzipan. Make holes in the head and insert the eyes, then dot with the dark food colouring.
Whiskers
I cheated with the whiskers by cutting the bristles off a NEW and UNUSED washing up brush and then sticking them in. Of course you must ensure that these are removed before children start to eat the food.
Anyone got any ideas for edible whiskers?
Make the Rat's Tail
Take a piece of pink marzipan the size of your thumb and roll it into a ball in the palm of your hands. Then start rolling the ball between the fingers of one hand and the palm of the other to gradually make a sausage shape and then finally the tail shape. It should be thicker at the base and go to a point at the other end.
Mix up a brown or black with the food colouring and flick on the segments with the end of a fine paint brush. Insert the tail into the back end of the rat.
These Rat and Mouse Cakes are So Easy that a Child Can Make Them
Cake for Kids to bake!
Why not get the children to bake their own cakes. Kids can bake! This fat rat is so easy to make that my twelve year old son and his friend managed to make them and eat them in a matter of minutes! They used the left over cake and half a slab of chocolate. It disappeared very quickly. I suppose the word 'bake' though is misleading in a 'no-bake' cake. Lets say "cake for kids to make" instead.
The verdict?
"Super-bon"
(Very good in English- we live in France).
Here are the Rat Cakes the Kids Made
These are the two rats that the kids made - and ate. Hope you have as much fun as we did. Happy Halloween.
Is This Fat Rat Halloween Cake for You? - Or will you go for mini-mice cakes instead?
Will you make a chocolate fat rat cake this Halloween?
Need More Halloween Party Food Inspiration?
- My Halloween Party Ideas Board on Pinterest
I'm planning a Halloween party and saving ideas that I come across on the web here on my Pinterest board. Why not take a look if you're planning a Halloween party?
Another fab Halloween cake idea
Need more cakes? Why not try these other Halloween cake ideas?
Have a Halloween Pumpkin Laugh Here - The Annoying Orange meets Pumpkin
.... who comes to a 'sticky' end
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