Halloween Cakesicles

Hello foodies!

I love Halloween, apple strudel and the whole autumn season. So here are some super cute Halloween Cakesicles – apple cheesecake style!

A creamy salted caramel cheesecake, filled with cinnamon apples and crumbled biscuits. All coated in Déco Melts and decorated Halloween style.

Great fun to make for young and old alike.

For 20 small or 10 large cakesicles, you will need:

Caramelised apples

225gr of tart apples, cut into small cubes

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

80gr brown sugar

2 to 3 tsp maple syrup

Cheesecake mixture

320gr cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1 tsp vanilla extract

70gr icing sugar

100gr caramel

1-2 pinches of salt

200gr heavy cream

8 biscuits (I used Petits Beurre here)

Moulds and decorations

Small ice lolly moulds

Large ice lolly moulds

Déco Melts

Halloween sugar paste kit

Sugar "eye" decorations

Halloween medley sprinkles

Caramelised apples

Let's go!

We start with the caramelised apples.

Peel the apples and cut them into small pieces. Depending on the size of the apples, you will need 2 or 3 apples to get 225gr of apple cubes.

Make sure to use sour, not too sweet apples.

Pour the 225gr of diced apples with 80gr of brown sugar into a saucepan.

Then add 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp maple syrup and cook for about 5 minutes until the sugar has melted and the apples are caramelised.

Once the apples have a nice colour, you can transfer them to a bowl and place them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

The cheesecake mixture

Once the caramelised apples have cooled, you can start preparing the cheesecake.

Prepare all your ingredients.

Crumble 8 biscuits by placing them in cling film or a freezer bag and crushing them with a rolling pin. They don't need to be perfectly crumbled – I like the mixture to have some larger chunks.

Lightly whip 200gr heavy cream. Set aside in the fridge.

In a mixing bowl, combine 320gr cream cheese, 70gr sifted icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 100gr caramel and 1 to 2 pinches of salt.

For the caramel, I used the ready-made version from Funcakes and added a little salt. You can of course make your own salted butter caramel by following our recipe. :o)

Mix everything together with a whisk at medium speed until well combined. Then add the whipped cream and mix briefly.

Add the crushed biscuits and the cooled caramelised apples. Then gently fold everything together with a spatula.

Filling

Now it's time to fill our ice lolly moulds.

As mentioned above, the recipe makes 20 small or 10 large Cakesicles. I personally prefer the small moulds =)

You probably don't have that many moulds at home... So you can either reduce the recipe, or make several batches by freezing them for at least 2 or 3 hours, then unmoulding them and refilling the moulds again, and so on. Make sure to put your Cakesicles back in the freezer each time.

The Cakesicles must be frozen for a minimum of 6 hours (overnight is even better) before being coated.

Fill the cavities of your mould and smooth with a spatula.

Then insert the wooden sticks. Add a little more mixture, smooth it out and tap your moulds on the table to remove any air bubbles.

Once they are all done, place them on a perforated tray and put them in the freezer.

Coating and finishing

Here comes my favourite part – the decoration! :o)

Let's start with the coating. The advantage of Déco Melts is that you simply melt them in the microwave and they're ready to use, and they come in wonderful colours. The downside is that they don't have the great taste of real chocolate. To be honest, I enjoy working with Déco Melts because it's easy and quick and the colours are lovely, but taste-wise... I'm not a fan.

Of course, you can also use white chocolate, temper it and colour it with chocolate colouring. But that takes more time and is more delicate.

Place a whole bag of Déco Melts in a small jug and melt them in 30-second intervals in the microwave at 600Watt until completely melted. It is important to stir the Déco Melts every 30 seconds to prevent them from burning.

Unmould your Cakesicles. Keep them in the freezer and only take out one at a time.

The chocolate should be in a tall, narrow container so that the Cakesicle can be fully submerged.

Hold the Cakesicles by the stick and dip them once into the melted chocolate. Lightly wipe the edge of the lolly against the jug.

Place the Cakesicles on a sheet of baking paper while the chocolate finishes setting.

Once your Cakesicles are coated, pour the remaining melted Déco Melts onto baking paper and let the chocolate harden. This allows you to break the chocolate once cooled and put it back in the packaging to store and reuse.

Repeat this process with all your colours and Cakesicles.

For the decoration, I used various Halloween-themed sugar decorations, a disposable piping bag and sugar paste that is already coloured or can be coloured yourself with gel food colouring.

The Cakesicles may "sweat" a little, meaning a layer of condensation forms on the surface. This is no problem at all. You can dab it off with a piece of kitchen paper.

Fill your piping bag with melted Déco Melts and snip off the tip with scissors. Place the Cakesicles on a sheet of baking paper and drizzle the Déco Melts over them in a steady back-and-forth motion, then immediately sprinkle with sugar decorations.

If the Déco Melts have already hardened, no problem – you can stick the decorations on individually with a little melted Déco Melts. It just takes a bit longer =P

For the pumpkins, use a piping bag filled with black Déco Melts again and draw two triangles on the Cakesicles.

Then take some green sugar paste, roll it into a ball, then into a sausage shape.

Twist the sausage shape and place it using a modelling tool. It should hold on its own. If not, you can stick it on with a little Déco Melts. Our pumpkin is ready!

For the mummy, roll out the sugar paste with a small rolling pin and cut strips using a cutting tool. They don't all need to be the same size or straight – it's a mummy after all ;) For the eyes, use these sugar decorations from Decora.

Stick the eyes on with melted chocolate and then place the sugar paste strips on the Cakesicles. Trim the excess with the cutting tool.

And there you have it, the lovely mummy mum and her baby mummy are ready. :o)

For the zombie, also stick the eyes on with Déco Melts. Roll sausage shapes with the sugar paste. Then use black Déco Melts to draw a mouth and a few extra scars. The zombie is ready. :o)

To make the spider web, draw 4 lines with black Déco Melts on the Cakesicles then connect them like a spider web.

For the spider, roll 4 strands of black sugar paste and overlap them to get 8 legs.

Then make a ball for the body. 2 sugar eyes and you're done!

And there you go! All the Cakesicles are ready =)

It was important for me to show you different decoration possibilities. :o)

Store the Cakesicles in the fridge in an airtight container. Consume within 3 days.

I hope you'll try these Cakesicles and enjoy my apple cheesecake twist.

Have a great and spooky Sunday and an early Happy Halloween. :o)

Jenny

PS: All the materials used can be found at the bottom of the recipe.