Happy Halloween!

Now for a little break from birthday cakes, this next post is a more timely one for a Halloween cake!
Last night my friend Helen threw a Halloween party, & I was volunteered to make a themed cake for it!! I was really pleased I got the opportunity to do this, as Helen’s invite asked for guests to bring a savoury food dish for the buffet, which disappointed me!! However, Helen had decided to ask just a few people to bring a sweet dish, and a friend suggested I could do a cake! So, as soon as I was asked I excitedly started gathering ideas & planning what to do!
I chose a bright orange fondant to use as the base colour, which I thought was great for Halloween and really bold & eye-catching. I cut a few spooky shapes out of black modelling paste, & placed them around the edge of the cake to look like silhouettes against the orange back ground. I sketched my ideas on paper first, & then used a sharp knife to cut them out of the paste, which took much longer than I expected. The shapes included a creepy old house, pumpkins with scary faces, a witch’s cat and a headstone.
I had an idea for the top focal point of the cake, which also allowed me to test out freezing and defrosting my sponge cakes… Early in October, I made a cake for work to help raise funds for our charity of the year (blog post on this to follow!!) and I didn’t use all the sponges I had baked. So, I thought I could do a bit of a trial and freeze one, in order to assess how this affected the quality of the sponge. I thawed it a little yesterday afternoon, & then cut it and carved it into the shape I required… As it was still cold from the freezer, it made it easier to carve as it was less crumbly, and I was able to make a sphere shape, which I covered and decorated as a witch’s cauldron. To add a little humour, a made two witches legs to stick out of the bubbling cauldron, and left her hat & broom beside it! It was great to hear everyone’s surprise that the cauldron was cake too when I cut it up at the party, and I was pleasantly surprised to find the texture, lightness & moistness of the cake can not been spoiled by the freezing.
I wanted to get some atmospheric & creepy pictures to post here, so asked my friend Rich to help out as he’s a good photographer. He turned out to be a great help – even kneeling on the floor shining a torch at different angles to create the right lighting! And I’m really pleased with the pictures we got :-)

Victoria Sponge Blog Halloween Cake 02

Halloween cake

Victoria Sponge Blog Halloween Cake 01

The witch after toppling into her bubbling cauldron!

 

 

I also, coincidentally, came across a picture of some cupcakes I made for Helen’s last Halloween party so thought I could include this in the post! As you can see, I had fun decorating many cupcakes as pumpkins, vampires, spider webs and mummies!

Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween Cupcakes