Bloody Brain Dessert- Chocolate Cake With Squishy Milk Jello

I always wanted to make a brain cake but I'm a very lazy baker, so playing with fondant and arranging brain folds would take way too much time. Plus I'm not a big fan of sugar paste to begin with. This year I came up with an alternative, lazy version of a brain cake using brain jello mold.

It's a very simple recipe: frosted cake imbedded with "blood" capsules that burst and ooze out upon cutting the dessert, and all of that covered in a thick layer of delicious Gelatina de Leche (mexican milk jello).

I'm going to be honest with you. This cake looks good in the pictures, but in person it looks rather gruesome. It wobbles a bit, the texture of the brain is very squishy if you touch it and once you cut into the cake and portion it out, the layer of milk jello and cake separate and the milk jello looks a bit like a chunk of skin slipping around your plate. Very tasty, but also sooo freaky. 

If you spend some time painting the brain groves and then add some "blood" it will look extra spooky. 

More of an adult party cake than kid-friendly. I can attest to it, my 8 year old niece declined this cake as a desert and opted for an apple instead 

1. Cake of your choosing, any flavour you want (I used a cake mix in a box)
2. Buttercream or ganache frosting, again, any flavour you want
3. Ingredients for the milk jello are listed in the picture above
4. Plastic brain mold
5. Oil to grease the mold or spray oil
6. Small sieve, small ziplock bag, scotch tape, plastic/paper drinking straw, pastry brush
7. Optional:
8. hollow chocolate balls (can be found in the Christmas section in the grocery stores)
9. fake blood made of fruit juice like raspberries, strawberries or cherries + sugar
10. food dye- red and blue

Each component of this cake can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge/freezer and then be assembled the night before it's to be served.

"Blood" juice and "blood" capsules can be made and kept in the freezer for weeks.

Cake can be made and frozen too, then defrosted before being covered in ganache

Milk jello can be made 2-3 days before eating and kept in the fridge (it will have to be reheated to melt it, then cooled down to room temperature and sieved before using)

Ganache/buttercream has to be made fresh on the day you make the cake.

Make "blood" by using some kind of red fruit juice. I did mine by boiling a handful of frozen raspberries and cherries with some water, a splash of lemon juice, red food dye and sugar to taste. The mixture then had to be sieved and cooled down. You don't need much, only about 1/2 cup of juice.

For "blood" injections, open a small ziplock bag, snip one corner of the bag off with scissors and push a short plastic/paper straw through the small hole. Secure the straw to the bag with scotch tape. When the "blood" is cooled down, transfer the liquid to the ziplock bag, seal it and use it to fill the chocolate balls.

Use a lighter or any open flame to heat up a small, metal tool (crab fork or metal skewer) and poke a round, 5mm hole in the chocolate ball(s).

Fill the balls 2/3 way with "blood" and put in the freezer. Don't overfill, liquid expands as it freezes and it can crack the chocolate and explode.

After few hours, take the balls out of the freezer and add a dollop of melted chocolate to cover up the holes. Put back in the freezer if not using straight away, otherwise, keep them in the fridge if you are making the cake on the same day.

CAKE

As I mentioned earlier, the cake you make is entirely up to you.

Choose your favourite recipe, buy a cake mix or go the super lazy way and buy an already baked cake and just carve it into a sphere.

If you are baking it, make your life easier and bake the cake in a 1L PYREX glass bowl or a half-sphere baking tin, that way you won't need to carve the cake into a half-sphere. Otherwise, you will have to bake the cake in a cake tin and carve it with a knife to fit the brain mold.

I used a cake mix in a box (400g) and prepared it as per instructions, the yield was 12 cupcakes and I used the majority of the cake, there were a very few offcuts. So, whatever recipe you go with, it has to be enough cake for at least 12 cupcakes, or a 7" cake.

FROSTING

The outside of the cake has to be covered in hard chocolate ganache or hard buttercream. By "hard" I mean that it gets hard once it's refrigerated. So you need to use buttercream with high quantity of butter or chocolate ganache with high quantity of chocolate.

For dark chocolate ganache you need to use 2 parts chocolate and 1 part heavy cream, heat it up and mix until smooth. I used 100g of dark chocolate mixed with 50ml heavy cream to make a hard ganache to frost the outside of the cake and 100g chocolate+75ml heavy cream for a softer ganache that I used on the inside of the cake.

ASSEMBLY

Cut the cake into 2-3 layers and spread ganache/filling between each layer. If you are using "blood" capsules, you will have to carve a small indent inside the cake to fit the chocolate balls, cover them in frosting and top off with a layer of cake. Then leave the cake in the fridge for a few hours for the filling to harden.

Once the filling is hard, take the cake out of the fridge and place the brain mold on top to see where to carve the cake. It has to be smaller than the inside of the mold, you need about 0.5 inch space for the milk jello. It's easy to see through the transparent plastic.

Once your cake is sufficiently shaped, cover the whole thing in a layer of hard ganache or buttercream and put back into the fridge to harden.

Pour 2/3 cup of cold water into a saucepan and sprinkle gelatine on the surface. Leave for 5 minutes to allow the gelatine to bloom. Then, melt the mixture over medium heat (DON'T LET IT BOIL) and add the remaining ingredients (evaporated milk, condensed milk, half and half and vanilla extract). Mix it well with a whisk and heat it over medium heat until it's warm, but not boiling hot.

You can add food colouring to the jello if you want to (light pink or light grey) or leave it plain white.

GREASE THE MOLD BEFORE POURING THE JELLO!! Either spray it with a spray oil or pour 2 tbs of liquid, neutral tasting oil (coconut, sunflower, butter) to the mould and swish it around to cover the grooves. Pour out the leftover grease.

Pour a little over 1/2 cup of the milk jello into the brain mold and leave it to set in the fridge for 4-5 hours. This will create a jello base before we place the cake inside the mold.

The remaining milk jello has to be kept in the fridge as well (you will have to warm it up when you use it again).

Once the first layer of jello is set we can move to the final step.

Start by melting the remaining milk jello on the stove or in the microwave. You want it to be hot enough to melt, but not boiling hot. Leave it to cool to room temperature. Once cooled down, pass it through a sieve (it will remove any lumps, foam and air bubbles).

Remove the frosted cake from the fridge, and flip it upside down. Pour half the remaining milk jello into the mold and (using carving forks or meat lifting forks) transfer the cake into the mold. If it refuses to stay in the proper position, you can prop the cake with some utensils, so it doesn't lean into the walls (I used some popsicle sticks and chopsticks).

Put in the fridge for 1 hour to firm up a bit. Then, take it out and top off the sides with more milk jello, all the way to the top. Refrigerate for 5 hours.

RESERVE LEFTOVER MILK JELLO FOR DECORATION.

Once the jello is set completely you might have to level the cake while it's still in the mold.

Gently pry the top layer of the jelly away from the mold, then flip the mold over and remove the cake from the form by gently peeling the sides of the plastic apart. I have no pictures of this process because it took 4 hands to do it.

Place the cake onto a serving plate. It will be too fragile to move it once it's out of the mold, so don't move it afterwards.

This part is both optional and depends on your artistic prowess/imagination.

Divide small quantities of leftover milk jello into small bowls, melt it and mix in food dye. Use a brush to apply it to the brain. You can apply several layers of different colours. With each new colour, place the cake in the fridge for 10-15 min to firm up the coloured jelly and prevent the colours from bleeding.

I painted mine with a layer or light pink, followed by a layer of light purple and then added dark blue to highlight the brain folds. In the end I didn't like the way it looked, so I covered it all in a layer of red "blood".

If you decide to serve it to guests, make sure they have strong stomachs and/or are appropriately tipsy 🙈