Brain Cake

Making a Brain cake is fun, cheap and great for Halloween parties or get-togethers. This is a basic instructable to show you how to make the details for this cake, the size and shape depends on your preferences. You can do similar designs for cupcakes or even flat cakes depending on what best fits your needs. This cake is made from two 8 inch pan cakes that were cut and assembled together to make a more realistic brain cake. The gore is also optional, although it does make the cake look more grusome and realistic.

Step 1: Ingredients

Here are the Basic Ingredients that you will need, however depending on what kind of cake mix or cake recipe you use it will vary.
1. Cake Mix + necessary ingredients (follow the instructions on your recipe or box)
2. Frosting (we bought ours but feel free to mix your own
3. Mini Marshmallows (a whole package preferably)
4.Powdered Sugar
5. Cake dye, especially the colors green and red.
6. Oil (to grease your hands with later)

Comments

[lovelyann]

I made this cake for my step son's 14th birthday and it was a smash! :) The only thing I did differently was actually cut the cake into a round, "brain" shape before applying the marshmallow fondant.

[J-Five]

ME WANT BRAIN!!!!!!!!!

[mdavison1]

I made this cake last night for a Spooky Desserts contest at work. I added my own touch with some gray brain matter, it was a hit and I won the contest. Thank you!

[kiffakitty]

You're Welcome! It Turned out fantastic, BTW. I love the colors!

[lucienaw]

Worked perfectly, but used a chocolate cake instead!

[beautifulsouth0]

Wow- I am excited to try this for a birthday cake! My plan is for a homemade white cake with raspberry filling. I'm using the hints, like creating a dome out of two halved cake rounds, and piping buttercream icing instead of fondant (in this heat I hope to keep a nice consistncy). I'm trying two finishing touches, as I'm a trauma RN, and I want to make it as realistic as possible: before adding blood on the outside, I'm going to lightly "paint" the brain with either clear gelatin or caaro syrup after a test each to see what comes out right. And I'm going to "sit" my brain in a pool of red colored caaro to really make it look really bloody! Wish me luck!

[kiffakitty]

Wow, that is way more effort than I have ever put into a cake! Please post a picture!

[kahaynes]

This is the "zombie brain" cake I made for my husband's Walking Dead birthday party this year. These instructions were great! Since the cake was green velvet (used green dye rather than red) I made cream cheese marshmallow fondant, and I thickened the blood mixture with a little cornstarch and added some vanilla to taste. Otherwise, I followed this exactly, and it turned out wonderful!

[kiffakitty]

Haha, that sounds like an awesome party! Thanks for sharing your pics!

[drainer1]

This is such an amazing cake!!! I made this for my friends 25th birthday - themed Zombie. Was a MAJOR success, no one had any idea I was doing it & I got a standing ovation so that was pretty swell.
Just as a point of note, my cake was pretty big & I made my own marshmallow & there was HEAPS of it. It tasted great making it myself but be warned, it makes the process of turning it into a taffy like consistency a VERY painful job, with the recipe I went with, it took about 8 packets of icing sugar (powdered sugar) to turn get it to how I needed it. The whole decorating process took me hours & I was pretty exacting with the blood. But in the end major success, I was happy as was the birthday boy! Also took a chunk out where a "zombie" had bitten into it.
Also used heated jam instead of frosting to stick it to the cake.

[kiffakitty]

I love that you used red cake on the inside; it's the perfect touch!

[magwheels662000]

My daughter wanted a zombie birthday party and this cake was perfect for her. I used whipped cream frosting and tinted it gray. I used 3 layers and trimmed it into the brain shape - filling each layer with cherry pie filling for the 'bleeding' effect. I drizzled some additional filling down the sides.

the kids loved it. Thanks for the idea.

Maggie

[kiffakitty]

I bet the frosting tastes a lot better than my fondant! Nobody ended up really eating my fondant so switching over to frosting was a good idea for a kid's party. Thank you for sharing!

[Monster Muncher]

No worries figured it out. Wouldn't pink marshmallows be easier

[kiffakitty]

Sorry for not responding- anyways, it is up to you. If you are going for a pink brain, then you don't have to fuss with dye if you buy pink marshmallows. I was going for a grey matter, white matter, and some pink mix, so I just bought white marshmallows.

[cool knex13]

Now I know why zombies like brains

[susanchen2011]

It is a little horrible.

[Monster Muncher]

Can you use larger marshmallows? Will you need less

[tinker234]

i saw a skull pan online now i guess i can make a head cake

[Shelby_Galloway]

I loved this cake! My only thing I would add to this recipe is a detailed ingredients list. Since this was my first attempt to make anything like this . . . I used:

*Two boxes of cake mix
*Three bags of marshmallow
*A bag and a half of powdered sugar
*Two and a half containers of frosting

That might just be my inexperience . . . But it was HUDGE! Ha Ha. Otherwise it was a major success. Great Cake!

[mryan15]

I made the brainiest brain cake ever. Thanks so much for these instructions! It went perfect with our mad-scientist themed Halloween party.

[jadekikyo]

This is going to sound weird but my 4yr old little girl would LOVE this as her birthday cake. She's almost a halloween baby and her personality shows it, lol.

[CanningGirl]

the cakes are awesome i love them

[bkr1969]

Nice idea.  Made one for a Christmas party (hosted by a neurosurgeon).  Went over great. I did mine with 3 layers vertically instead of horizontal.  That gave me more height, though getting it to stand up took a bit of thought.

[kiffakitty]

haha, a Christmas party with a brain cake sounds awesome!

[iamhungry]

WOW!!!! Great Job!!! I think I might have you make me one for haloween. JK

[zcaper]

i made a vegan version of this for my friend's birthday complete with a chocolate knife in the top and raspberry bloody filling. if you use vegan marshmallows for the fondant, you need to add some shortening to make it come together in the right consistency.

[kiffakitty]

That is really awesome! I love the details! It looks like you even shaded the squiggly parts with shades of pink. :D

[pyho2007]

Here's my brain-cake.  Making fondant from scratch is definitely a challenge but well worth it.

[WhyHello]

you should leave that in front of a police station "a gift for our officers" XP

[kiffakitty]

 wow thats great! i love the shape of it, very realistic

[kwnstant!na]

I unfortunately don't own a microwave oven.
Could I use the regular oven instead ?
Will it work the same way ?

[kiffakitty]

You could heat it up on a stove top. The important thing is to have melted marshmallows, the technique isn't really important.

[ahouse18]

Thanks so much for the instruction! We made it for my 9 year old's birthday/Halloween party. The funny thing is, I spent a few hours putting it together - I used 3 layers to make it tall (and strawberry cake on the inside), we unveiled it, and all of the boys at the party were so grossed out by it that they just had ice cream!! Thanks again for a fun memory.

[the_burrito_master]

I wouldn't eat it ether, just knowing that there's fondant on it grosses me out.

[kiffakitty]

haha! no one really wanted to eat our cake either! My friend's 13 year old sister was especially grossed out :)
I guess you have to be a zombie lover at heart to truly enjoy this!

[annafrank]

look so scary) great idea
http://oops-news.ru/

[Strapped-4-Cache]

Great instructable! I *mostly* followed the directions, but I placed my cake rounds on their side after cutting, creating the two hemispheres. After placing the fondant on them the two began to spread apart, but the effect was actually pretty neat and made it more realistic. Instead of knives I uses a little sign saying, "Zombie Special - FRESH BRAINS!!!"

Thanks for the idea. It was a winning entry in our office "creepy dessert" contest.

[sarahu]

:) made one thanks for the instructable

[ziggiau]

Could you just make the marshmallow from scratch? It's easy enough to do (this Instructable seems to do the trick - http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Flavored-Marshmallows/) and maybe you could modify the ingredients (less liquid, more sugar) to get you to the correct consistency?