Devil’s Food Cake with Pumpkin Butterscotch Frosting

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but glittering black sugar sprinkles and sparkling orange hard candies are a girl’s best friend…

That’s right, friends, it’s not all panna cotta skull graveyards and moldy tarts around here—we can do glamorous Halloween food, too! This elegant cake features contrasting black and orange layers of extra-chocolatey devil’s food cake and pumpkin-butterscotch frosting. Top it off with some chocolate buttercream, a coating of glimmering black sprinkles, and radiant orange candies, and you have a Halloween layer cake fit for a queen…or better yet, a Marilyn Monroe impersonator!

This cake has been haunting my brain for at least a month now. I bought the sparkling black sugar one day, and the next day found the glittering orange backdrop, and bam! The idea for the cake was dropped fully-formed into my head. You all know I have a tendency to go a little over-the-top, but sometimes the classiest and most elegant desserts are also the simplest. All this cake needed was a solid coating of sprinkles and a few jewel candies, and it was ready to go.

I made the jewels myself, using a hard candy mold and a quarter batch of the candy recipe from my Dia de los Muertos Skull Cake from last year. Homemade jewel candies are not a requirement and I think this cake would look equally awesome with orange gumballs or Sixlets or a variety of other orange hard candies.

Let’s talk chocolate…cake, that is. I wanted this cake to be the richest, deepest, darkest devil’s food imaginable. I wanted my taste-testers to beg for a glass of milk after finishing a slice. I wanted them to stick out their tongues and see only inky blackness when they were finished. Okay…that last part is kind of gross, but you get the idea.

To achieve all of these effects without food coloring or chemical shenanigans, I used black cocoa. If you’re not familiar with it, black cocoa is extra-alkalized cocoa powder. It has a very dark color (some might even call it black, fancy that) and a really, really deep chocolate taste. Here’s a handy comparison of some of the cocoas in my kitchen. From L-R: Hershey’s natural cocoa, Valrhona Dutch-processed (aka alkalized) cocoa, and Black Onyx cocoa.

Natural cocoa is the kind most often found in the cheap Hershey’s can. It has a really light color and a mild cocoa flavor. My preferred cocoa is Dutch-processed or alkalized cocoa, meaning that the cocoa has had its acidity reduced and is a deeper color and has a smoother, richer flavor. My favorite brands are Valrhona and Cacao Barry Extra Brute, and I’d say I use them in about 90% of my baking. And for special occasions, when I want to really let the chocolate flavor rip, I reach for the Black Onyx cocoa powder. It gives this cake a natural black color and a crazy intense chocolate flavor. I should note that I typically substitute up to half of the cocoa in a recipe with black cocoa—it can have a drying effect on baked goods, so I like to cut it with other cocoa powder, and use it in recipes with a generous amount of oil or other fat.

Don’t worry, though, there is nothing dry about this cake recipe! Even using half black cocoa and half “regular” alkalized cocoa, it still has a super dark color and super-intense chocolate taste. It comes together quickly in one mixing bowl, no melting of chocolate, alternating wets and drys, or creaming of butter and sugar required. Lazy baker high five!

I know it’s been a lot of yadda yadda about the chocolate cake so far, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to tell you how much I love this pumpkin-butterscotch frosting. It is definitely two great tastes that taste great together. The flavors of pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, and butterscotch chips meld beautifully into a sweet, spiced frosting that is perfect when paired with dark chocolate. I also think that this would be great made with the seasonal Nestle Pumpkin Spice chips, if you happen to snatch those up in stores.

Au revoir, friends, go and have yourselves a sparkly, jewel-encrusted, chocolate-flavored, frosting-filled day!

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