Baking a Halloween Cake

Originally published in The Laconia Daily Sun ›

When we were young our mother made certain holidays were magical. Gifts were creatively wrapped, cards included thoughtful messages and usually there was a dinner, a dessert or something that made the occasion memorable. What I particularly remember are her birthday cakes. One had a real doll with a flowing pink frosted cake skirt.  Perhaps the most ambitious, prepared for my twin brothers’ birthday, was a train with each car a separate cake.  I recall the days she spent in the kitchen preparing it, as I sat and watched.

My baking and other domestic skills cannot begin to compare to my mother’s.   I could never figure out how in just an hour she could take lemons, a few eggs and end up with a lemon meringue pie with perfect little golden-brown peaks on the top of the meringue.

I can bake pumpkin pie. With a can of pumpkin and an electric beater it’s difficult to fail. This weekend I baked my first pumpkin pie of the autumn season.  I placed an acorn on the top as “decoration.”  Then I read about the Belknap Mill Halloween Cake Decorating Competition.   As I love a challenge have decided to enter.

First of all, I’ll have to channel my mother.  Should I try and actually make the cake?
That is not purchase a mix from the shelf and just add egg, water and oil?
That will mean buying cake flour and making certain I have all the necessary ingredients.

What about the shape? Will it be round or square? Tall or flat? Of course, the shape is based on the design.   A traditional jack-o-lantern will probably be round.  Wonder if it would be possible to bake a cake the size of a pumpkin?  Ideally it would be a pumpkin cake.  The ingredients are simple enough:  flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla extract, oil and eggs, sugar and pumpkin.

Obviously, the design of a witch on a broom or a black cat would be best on a flat rectangular cake.  This might be a chocolate cake.  Even though the judges won’t notice, the people eating it will. How could you cut into a white cake with a witch on the inside? And wouldn’t you bake a coin or something into the cake to be discovered?  Something frightening but safe?

I’ll do my research. Martha Stewart, the Great British Bakeoff and vintage magazines from the 50’s.  These were the magazines with the recipes and the images women who were homemakers copied.

Then there will be figuring out which pan to use.  How to color the frosting.  How to apply the colored frosting as decoration. I can already imagine the mess.  Possibly the reason I’m not particularly proficient in the kitchen.  My mother always complained when I cooked that everything seemed covered with flour and the floor was sticky when I finished.

I’m certain my design will never make it to the top. Who knows if it will even survive the oven?   Whatever happens it will take me back to those carefree days of childhood when the air was filled with laughter.  And that alone will make it worth the three days of cleaning the kitchen, the floor and the refrigerator door handles that may result.