Movie cakes and bizarro face bakes

So those of you who know me in person, will know that I am a bit of a closet baker. I say closet merely for the fact that I don't seem to be able to do it very often. There are never enough people around me to eat a cake in it's entirety, and it's not like you can just bake one slice. Although.. saying that, in my new job, there are lots of mysteriously appearing cakes, and lots of people to eat them, so this could all be about to change.

Anyway, so if I've got a reason to make a cake, I tend to really go for it, and get it out of my system. Problem is, even with the best intentions, they all come out looking deathly creepy.

So this is the last time I managed to do that; introducing, The Man in the Moon cake. Those of you who are familiar with The Mighty Boosh (which is a very obscure, very weird UK 'comedy' for those of you who may not have heard about it. It is the brainchild of two bizarre comedians, and in my opinion, a passable querky half-hour, and little else. But that's not important. What's important was that it was our friend's favourite TV show. So when it was his birthday, I baked a blue sponge cake, and decorated it for him.

The um.. 'real' Man in the Moon off the telly

My cake version of the Man in the Moon (with evident over-sized features; yes, I know)

Kinda goofy. But yeah. Man in the moon was a fun one. I mean, I've done three of these now (sadly, I cannot show you one as it was a giant, veiny penis for a Hen do, and just a little too extreme for my fluffy blog), and I don't seem to have learned that I should measure features against the size of the cake BEFORE I sculpt them, what I've been doing is just kinda building stuff while the cake is in the oven. They're always too big. But then I think this has given me my own 'signature' style. Who am I kidding, there is no business idea here. These are just special gifts for friends.

Man in the moon has facial features sculpted from fondant icing, with an egg-white icing (mallow) for coverage. If you ever try to make mallow icing, make sure you've got a flipping electric whisk handy. TRUST ME.

..That was a couple of years ago now.

This year, specifically the weekend just passed, it was time for our Friend Jonny's birthday. He's been through a tough time this year so I had to do something really really special for him. Now our friend Jonny likes the film Hellraiser (including the sequels, 2, 3 and 4). So it was an easy character to pick for him. My fella and I decided on Pinhead.

Pinhead, the leading evil force in the Hellraiser movies

My Pinhead cake

This is my Pinhead. Apart from five of the pins, which are birthday candles, the rest are cocktail sticks (which after a few drinks, we were lucky not to have injured ourselves, really). The teeth were dyed with Turmeric (we'd run out of yellow food colouring, and saffron didn't work), and the all of it was sculpted from fondant icing. The sponge is a black and white marble cake (when cut into it, Jonny said it looked 'dead inside' - cool), took a whole tube of black food colouring to get that one to work. I wonder what's in that stuff, anyway? Oh well.

Needless to say, Jonny loved it. So I'm really happy to have made the effort for him. My oversized features have actually made it look a bit creepier, I think. But if you can visually add a bit of forehead and some chin, I think it's come out fairly realistic, if a little bug-eyed and Aardman-ish.

I was very lucky to attend a school which offered GCSE sculpture, and I absolutely loved it. Other than, y'know, Fimo, there are very few outlets for that kind of skill. So if you've got itchy fingers, maybe it's time you had a go at making a scary cake? god help me if I try and make one for kiddies, sometime.. it would probably make them all cry!!!