Chocolate Orange Pumpkin Cakes

With Halloween fast approaching who doesn't love some spooky treats? In the spirit of all things spoopy I've whipped up some adorable and tasty little cakes with a twist. For these I used a silicon mould which I found in Lidl but you can also buy online or in places like Lakelands etc.

What you will need:

• 140g of butter
  
• 140g of caster sugar
  
• 140g of self raising flour
  
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla
  
• 1 tsp of orange flavouring (or more depending on your taste)
  
• 2 eggs
  
• Orange food coloring (or red and yellow mixed together)
  
• 150g of chocolate (optional)
  
• either dark chocolate or black icing (for the faces)
  

What you need to do:

1. Preheat your oven to  180C
   
2. Put your butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together, add your vanilla and orange and mix until light and fluffy.
   
3. Add your eggs and beat toether and then sift your flour in a little at a time and fold together.
   
4. Add your orange food colouring until you get the desired colour, stirring in between drops. I actually ended up using a whole tube but I wanted them to be super orange.
   
5. Now spoon your mixture in to your moulds and place in the oven for about 15 minutes. Then leave to cool for a few minutes before taking them out and leaving to cool fully on a cooling wrack.
   
6. When they have cooled fully you can start to decorate. Now this step is completely optional. I sliced the bottoms so they sat flat on the plate and melted some chocolate in a bowl. Then I dipped the bottoms of the cakes and left them in the fridge for about half an hour to set.
   
7. Once the chocolate had set I took them back out and got to work on their faces. My moulds already gave them indented little faces ready but if yours don't then you can just have a play around and get creative. Originally I wanted black icing but I couldn't find any so I opted for chocolate. Carefully follow the faces and fill in with your chocolate and leave to set.
   

And there you have it.  Chocolate Orange Pumpkins! I really hope you like this recipe and I hope it gets you into the Halloween spirit!
xx