This Is What Makes Burger King Thailand's Ghost Burger Black

You know when Halloween's just around the corner: Supermarkets proudly start displaying their candy collection by the front door and ghost-themed cookies and witch hat-topped cupcakes take over the bakery aisles. Not everyone celebrates Halloween with cutesy little treats, though.

Burger King, for one, pulls out all the stops in time for Halloween. In 2018, the home of the Whopper launched a spooky burger called the Nightmare King with a quarter pound of grilled beef and a crispy chicken fillet sandwiched between a green-colored sesame seed bun with bacon, cheese mayonnaise, and onions (via QSR Magazine). The name of the burger wasn't just a Halloween marketing gimmick. Burger King actually conducted a study by tracking the sleep cycles of 100 participants over 10 nights and found that eating the Nightmare King before bed did, in fact, increase the chances of having a nightmare-filled sleepless night.

In 2019, Burger King partnered up with supernatural medium Riz Mirza to have its Halloween-themed Ghost Whopper taste tested by literal spirits, according to Delish. It turned out that the spirits did give their stamp of approval to the Ghost Whopper's white cheddar-flavored white bun. The chain then released the spooky burger in 10 outlets in the U.S.

While it's unclear whether the burger chain has any sinister burger plans for Halloween in the U.S. this year, it seems that they do have a black-colored burger in store for Burger King fans in Thailand (via Chewboom).

There's cocoa in the bun

Per Chewboom, Burger King has released a Halloween-themed Ghost Burger for a limited period of time in Thailand. It turns out, the burger is quite similar to the $1 Rodeo Burger available in the U.S., except, with a black-colored bun (via Thrillist).

As with the Rodeo Burger, the Ghost Burger has fried onion rings, BBQ sauce, and a beef or a pork patty. The Ghost Burger also comes with American cheese and bacon, all sandwiched between a black-colored bun worthy of the spooky season. The black color of the sesame seed bun, Chewboom reports, comes from the use of cocoa. The cocoa used to give the Ghost Burger its dark tinge could be black cocoa powder — a highly dutch processed form of cocoa powder that adds a black color to anything that you add it in without giving it a distinct chocolatey flavor (via The Best Cake Recipes).

Anyone daring enough to try the Ghost Burger in Thailand can choose to order it with a single patty which costs 119 Baht ($3.56) or a double patty for 179 Baht ($5.36).