I was recently asked to make a Halloween themed joint 30th and 29th Birthday cake. I love anything spooky and the chance to make a spooky cake filled me joy and excitement. I jotted down a few ideas and made a few sketches and presented them to see which cake would be made.
I was really pleased when they chose the ghost cake as this was the first idea that came to me and I have always wanted to make a comic style character cake. The idea itself is based on the drawing you make as a child and I think everyone when asked to draw a ghost would probably draw something similar to what I did.
The cake itself is a classic sponge but I added a little more flour so that it could handle the weight of being stacked and also the fondant icing. To begin with I baked five 7" round cakes and stacked them on top of each other with a layer of vanilla buttercream in between.
To get the dome I used my trusty 1 litre Pyrex bowl, the same on I used for my Stormtrooper cake. To get a perfect dome I cut the bottom and placed it on the top of the dome with buttercream and cut it to form a more dome like shape. This then went on top of the stack of 7"ers. It was now beginning to take shape.
Whilst baking the cakes I also baked a few cupcakes and I attached these with skewers to the sides of the cake and sculpted them slightly to form arms/hands.
I then added a crumb layer of buttercream (500g) and allowed to dry for a few hours. I then added another fine layer of buttercream and smoothed over with a wet pallet knife. This then was lightly wet with a pastry brush, ready for the fondant.
Firstly I covered the top two thirds of the cake with black fondant then I just wet the top of the dome with water. I now rolled out 1kg of white fondant icing to about 3-4mm thick and quickly layered it over the cake.
I smoothed down the top half of the cake with a cake paddle to create a smooth finish, but the bottom half of the cake was left. This gave the illusion of draping and floating. All I did extra was trim the excess fondant with a pizza cutter.
To make the eyes and mouth I used a cookie cutter and squeezed it slightly to form the mouth shape, and because I had put the black fondant underneath, once you cut the white fondant away the black was still there. I think this is a better look rather than sticking black on top of the white as it give the cake more depth and a more professional look.
Finally I made the small pumpkin which was basically 2 cupcakes fixed together with buttercream and shaped.
I added a layer of butter cream all over then a layer of chocolate fondant followed by a layer of orange fondant. I created the number by cutting out the numbers with a craft knife and using the end of a wooden spoon to form the grooves of the pumpkin.
I finished i of with a speech bubble, which I made few days earlier so that it had time to dry and go hard. This was fixed with a couple of lollipop sticks.
The only mistake I made was that I bought a 10" cake board especially for it, but when I came to put the cake on the board it didn't fit.....eek. Luckily I had a black thick tray which I turned upside down which fit just right.
I was really chuffed with this cake and I would definitely make it again, maybe even bigger next time.
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