*Martha, Martha, Martha!*

Halloween Spooktacular Cake:

2-tiered round marble cake (base 12", top 10") with chocolate buttercream icing covered in chocolate fondant. Cake topper- chocolate cookie house with melted LifeSaver windows, tree and tombstones, cocoa powdered nougat steps, shaved chocolate covering, gummy spiders and assorted chocolate embellishments. Brown royal icing "marbles" around base and top tier.

Yes, the day had finally come where Martha and I would duke it out in my kitchen and was this ever a battle of epic proportions! I have always been a fan of Martha, admiring her for craft and kitchen talents that can only be obtained by someone who has the freedom and the $avings account to reign as Queen Bee of Domesticality. I'm not bitter, in fact, I'm pretty sure that with my frequent trips to Macy's home store and the impulse pick up of her eye-catching magazines in the supermarket, I've contributed quite a lot to her ever growing empire.

But up until now, I had never really tackled a project of hers, mainly because I'm fully aware that it's really not Martha, but a whole army of kitchen wizards that make her mouthwatering masterpieces worthy of the Martha stamp of approval. And I, am very much on my own.

I was already in full admiration of this year's October issue with the promise of great Halloween ideas, particularly the edible goodies that dominated the pages. And then I got the email...

My former classroom room mom was throwing a huge Halloween party for her boys' school friends and families and was hoping I would provide a "WoW" factor for dessert, she had found a cake she would like from a magazine....

Praying it was not the 2-tiered spooktacular I had seen in Martha's mag, I hoped for the best and asked her to send a picture of the magazine cake. Wouldn't you know it, it WAS that 2-tiered cake! So after a minor fainting spell, I picked myself off the floor and replied with an exuberant, YES!

Me and Martha, Domestic Diva vs. Pastry Peasant...two will enter, only one will survive!

I severely underestimated the challenge before me, and have now vowed that this is the only time this cake will be made with these two hands. Of course, she was thrilled that this was a special, one of a kind, never to be made again cake for her amazing party. If only I had taken a picture of her house, now she knows how to decorate!

So here's how it all broke down:

*The cake was originally buttercream, I thought it best to cover in chocolate fondant, first because there would be a multitude of kids there with hundreds of fingers and second because I LOVE CHOCOLATE FONDANT! (please see August Bridal Shower cake) Covering it in fondant would not only ensure it arrived safely, but would stay pretty during the party.

*I wanted to add a little fun to the cake so I located a marble cake recipe from Martha's website which was sturdy but moist and flavorful. I added orange food coloring to the vanilla portion to up the spooky factor.

*It listed nougat or torrone as the edible material for the steps that creep up the cake walls...after 3 cake stores, I still don't know what torrone is, nor does anyone else apparently. So reaching into my Halloween bag of tricks, I remembered that 3 Musketteers bars are made of plain nougat so I opted for that. After spending an entire night cutting away the chocolate of an entire bag of candy, it turns out there isn't a whole lot of nougat in those little "fun" sized bars-who knew?

*The cookie topper is probably to blame for my never wanting to re-create this cake ever again.  You make the dough, you chill the dough, you let the dough become room temperature (HUH?) you cut out the dough, you chill the dough again, you cook the dough...AAAHHH!!!  And then, they want you to make caramel on the stove to pour into the cookie house windows, and that's where I put my foot down! Having done stained glass cookies last December, I knew full well, I could crush up some LifeSavers and melt them as the cookie baked-so take that Martha! I won't even talk about the sunflower seed roof....

*I did enjoy making chocolate embellishments with my chocolate melting pot and a new larger squeeze bottle. Spiders, spider webs, tombstones drawn on parchment paper and left to cool can be gently pried off and used as decoration. An added bonus-if you mess up or make too many, you get to snack as you work!

*This cake was also bringing me to a new frontier, it was 2-tiered! I do have a sort of 2-tiered cake in my pastry past, however it was a much smaller spongy cake on top of a heavily buttercreamed cake (see Vroom-Vroom) so I don't really count that. This was an honest to goodness 2-tiered cake that would need supports. I have 3 cake supply stores at my disposal not to mention Michael's and Tall Mouse craft stores, but I had never found supports like those super-sized plastic straws on Ace of Cakes-they looked so easy to work with. So I ended up with a set of Wilton cake supports that would need trimming. And by trimming I mean sawing and hacking into. But they did their job, so I'm happy enough. Hopefully I'll have more time to research where Charm City gets their supports before my next multi-layered cake!

So a day and a half mixing, baking and prepping the cakes, another day making buttercream, frosting and covering cakes in fondant, a day making all those ridiculous cookie accents and chocolate decorations and another day or so of preparing all the details and packing up everything I would need should a disaster occur while en route, this cake was on it's way! After about 2 1/2 hours of putting it all together at the party house, the cake was finished and I was elated! We both went into a picture taking frenzy and I finally convinced her that yes, she needs to cut into this cake and enjoy it. 

I do always find it funny, when people react so strongly to a cake like that, because the whole point is that hidden behind this visual gem is a decadent work of culinary art! It doesn't make any sense to make food pretty if no one wants to eat it-if anything, it should taste even better than it looks!

Happy Halloween!