Last year my brain was made out of a dark fruit cake but let's be honest, only the best brains should be made out of chocolate cake with a smattering of wildberries. That is exactly I created this year.
The recipe is simple enough to follow but allows for some creative embellishments and any personal modifications along the way.
Ingredients
Brain-shaped Jelly mold You can get these from the Internet or from some party supply shops in the lead up to halloween. Pick whatever size you wantis available. Mine holds close to 2 litres (metric).
Jelly crystals/powder mix Consider the colour but really pick the flavour you (or your culinary victim) prefers. Check the instructions... what volume of jelly does your mix make? In my case I used Strawberry Aeroplane Jelly and needed exactly half the volume of my brain-mold.
Cake or Muffin mix For my 2 litre brain I prepared I used two boxes of muffin mix which allowed me to use two different flavours (and colours). Chocolate and Wildberry. You can buy a preprepared cake such as a fruit-cake or you can use cake or muffin mix. I do recommend muffin mix because it seems easier to cook plus you can eat the excess muffins.
Optional Mix-in - Pick one or experiment with something. What you want here are potential brain 'clots' creating a disturbing experience for the person who has to cut the brain up. Suggestions include the following.
If you bought cake or muffin mix first follow the instructions on the product's box to make these. Note: If you have a boring coloured muffin or cake mix consider adding red food colouring. This is especially great if you are using two batches of mix and only colour one. (I coloured my Wildberry muffins bright red and left my chocolate muffins brown)
Allow for your cake/muffins to cool.
Take your cake/muffins and break them up into large chunks. Place the pieces into an appropriately sized bowl. If you have two sets of cake/muffins keep these in two separate bowls for the moment.
Place a few of the cake/muffin chunks into the mold pressing down lightly. If you are using two sets of cake/muffins mix chunks of both kinds in a haphazard manner.
If you are using a Mix-in suggested above (such as Glacé Cherries) then mix a handful of these into the chunks sitting in the mold.
Repeat adding the cake/muffin chunks with the mix-ins until you've filled the mold.
Mix up your jelly according to the instructions provided with the product.
Pour the jelly into the mold. You don't need to fill the jelly above the cake - you only need to make sure that it is absorbed into all the cake. Unless your mold is opaque you should be able to see the level through the sides as it fills up.
Place the mix into the refrigerator for at least as long as the jelly-instructions tell you it requires to be set (probably at least four hours).
The end result of a Zombie Brain Pudding I made for a pre-halloween zombie-movie gathering with friends last weekend. While it looks like a gory mix of browns and reds it tastes just like fruit cake.
Using a 1.5 litre brain jelly mould I used a recipe as can be found on the Aeroplane Jelly website.
I substituted the pitted cherries for 200g glacé cherries mixed throughout the fruitcake instead of lining the base like the original recipe.
Mine required a bit more jelly (~1.5 packets) which I added until the jellywater-level reached the top of the squished fruitcake. The fruitcake was squashed lightly - only enough to give the brain a flat bottom.
The glacé cherries provide the added benefit of solid clots that the knife gets caught on when you try to cut into the brain.
Please click on the thumbnails below to view the images:
Last year my brain was made out of a dark fruit cake but let's be honest, only the best brains should be made out of chocolate cake with a smattering of wildberries. That is exactly I created this year.
Dragonhaunt Studios