"Batty" Battenburg Cake and Ghoulish Green Punch

This is a fun cake to make.  I made my first Battenburg cake this past spring, and I've been itching to make another ever since. If you love the bright flavor of almond (like me!), then you'll love this cake. It has plenty of eye appeal, and will give any holiday dessert table an infusion of brilliant color.  I couldn't resist baking up a "Batty" version in Halloween hues.

The ghoulish green libation is a very basic party punch recipe.  I'm willing to bet that every hostess with the mostess has a version of this dog-eared. On party night, you may want to have ingredients for two batches on hand.  It is always guzzled down to the last drop, and refilling the entire punch bowl may be necessary.

You can find my recipe for Battenburg cake here.  All the same instructions apply for this cake, except I used a generous squeeze of Americolor purple and orange soft gel food coloring to tint the batter. And of course, black fondant was used to wrap this cake instead of white.

The bats are made of gum paste tinted black and rolled 1/4-inch thick.  If you have a small bat cookie cutter, you can use it to cut the gum paste into bat shapes.  Otherwise, there are scores of free clip art bat silhouettes to choose from online.  This is the one I used.  You simply lay the template on top of the gum paste and cut out the shape (through the paper) with an X-Acto knife. The bats are brushed with corn syrup diluted in a little water, then sprinkled with black sanding sugar.  Two tiny nonpareil eyes are applied with tweezers, and small lengths of floral wire are carefully inserted into the gum paste bats.


Gum paste dries candy-hard, so leave them uncovered to dry.  For best results, allow to dry overnight.

Ghoulish Green Party Punch
Serves about 20, more if using small punch cups                                                              [click for printable version]

2 cups granulated sugar
8 cups water
2 packages lime flavored gelatin, 3 oz. each
1 can of pineapple juice, 46 oz. size
4 cups ginger-ale
*Lime sherbet, optional

1. In a large punch bowl, stir together sugar and water until sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients until jello is dissolved.
3. Chill thoroughly before serving.

*Note:
This punch can be topped with lime sherbet just before serving.
Variation: Use your favorite gelatin flavor and sherbet flavor in place of the lime gelatin and sherbet.


Battenburg Cake                                  
Printable Battenburg cake recipe can be found here.  Photo tutorial can be found here.  Glittery candy bat instructions and batter color variation is explained in the text of this post (above).