A whole bleedy cakeThere was exactly one webpage about Bleedy Cake when I tried this recipe for Halloween 2003. Today there is still exactly one webpage, which confounds me. Bleedy cake is an amazing thing, why aren’t more people interested in cake that bleeds? Please send us pictures of your bleedy cake so we can show the Interweb how lovely it really is : )

2007 UPDATE: Behold, pictures and info on a bleeding heart cake!

A piece of bleedy cakeAnyway, you can use essentially whatever white cake recipe you want. Bake the cake as usual, but hollow out the bottom layer (oops I did the top!) about 1+” and frost it. This will be the barrier that forms the bloody lake inside. Then fill the frosted hole with raspberry syrup (I used Knott’s pancake syrup), frost the underside of the top layer of cake and plop that on top of the syrup lake.

This is REALLY sweet, so I didn’t frost the sides, and if you’re interested in presentation (and I know you are), start brainstorming ways to decorate without using more sugar. (The real bummer about this cake is all the white needed to make the “blood” stand out. White flour for the cake and white sugar for the frosting. Yeesh.) The syrup tends to run out pretty quickly and then soak into the cake, so try to serve and devour this shortly after slicing into it.