Weeping Maleficent Halloween Cake

You got to love a twist on a Disney's classic: our decapitated Maleficent is crying tears of blood. This wonderful piece was created by the talented Veena for the collaboration, Cakes that go bump at night. 

It's Halloween today! Wish you all a very Happy Halloween.

How are you all celebrating Halloween? Sadly we do not celebrate Halloween in Israel, but being American, we at home do celebrate it. Let's say the kids get to do so me spooky stuff, stay late and watch a few Halloween movies. And, of course, there's candy! The one an only day mom and dad are a bit lenient about candy.

I made this cake for the Halloween collaboration - Cakes that go bump at night . And, I had to create something gorry, spooky and scary. Now, if you know me, then you know I'm not the Halloween spooky, scary, gory kinda artist. In fact, novelty cakes are not my forte.

But, I do fancy indulging in some creations here and there. Like the brain spill cake I did last year for a your client. And, my Aadi loves this stuff and if given a choice he'd have me doing a few of these cakes for Halloween.

Inspiration

First, I had to pick a character to make gory and I just could not think of anything I could make. I hardly new any scary characters because I barely ever watch Halloween movies. Yes, I'm a chicken! So, I can't sit and watch these kinds of movies.

However, my Rhea likes Maleficent. And, last year she wanted me to make a Maleficent inspired cake for her birthday, which eventually, didn't happen. So, this time it seemed like a perfect cake to try.

My intro for the collaboration

My passion and profession – is cake decorating. And, I own a small cake business from home: Veena Azmanov. Also, I specialize mostly in wedding cakes. And yet, I often do the occasional sculpted and novelty cakes. I love creating new cake designs and sugar flowers.

A big thank you to Vicki for inviting me to this collaboration. I really enjoyed working on this project. I chose Maleficent because that is my daughter’s favorite movie. And, in keeping with the theme of Halloween for the collaboration, I decided to give Maleficent a Halloween make over. And, although characters in cakes is not my forte, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project.

Here are a few tips for those of you that are modeling-challenged like me

The cake

• The neck is the only cake in this whole things
• And it's a small 6 inch round that I cut even further.
• Just so the kids could have some fun. Trust me I didn't eat the cake but the kids enjoyed all the red strawberry jam with piping gel.

The face

• This cake is not really a full cake. I was not comfortable making the face with cake. Honestly, not sure I would do a good job.
• The face is build on a Styrofoam egg which is on a cake board with a threaded rod in the center.
• On the Styrofoam egg I added modeling chocolate to create a face.
• To make sure I get the proportions right, I printed a picture of the character from the internet in the size I want
• Then I used a cocktail stick to mark all the different features with dots - the eyes, nose mouth.. etc.
• Based on those marking I made a face.
• As you can see I have actually made is not really maleficent. It's just  a concept. I didn't get try to accomplish any similarities really.
• But if you were trying to get more similarity then you would need to make sure you trace the features with a cocktail stick more closely.

The head

• The head is modeling chocolate that I hand molded to the size and shape using a template again.
• I then covered it with black fondant strips.

The eyebrows

• The plan was to make a cut at the eye brows as well but
• Once I had done all the blood at the bottom I decided that it was just enough of gorry
• So I left the eyebrows as is.
• Personally I think I should have traced the eye brows properly first
• I did not get them even. I tried later to do it and messed it up even more
• So finally just left it as is.
• I MUST practice getting my eye brows more even next time.

 

My observations

Well considering that I do not do these cakes at all. An attempt at this was a fun project. As a cake artist I don't take these kind of orders because they are not worth my time in terms of money. I would spend a lot more time then what I would charge for it.

It was a fun project to do something out of the norm for me. I really enjoyed it having fun with it very much. It was quite stressful and was quite anxious because I did not know if I could get the features right. HA!!

Want to learn how to make faces and characters in cakes?

For those of you that want to explore the possibilities of creating sculpted character cakes. There is a wonderful tutorial on Paul Bradford's Sugar-craft School by Karen Keaney  who is an award winning cake artist. She has an amazing tutorial showing how she sculpts the face on a Styrofoam egg.  You must check out this paid tutorial - Gilbert the Goblin It's really detailed and full of valuable information.