Halloween 40th Birthday Cake

We all know that the big "4-0" can be scary. Especially when it is served up like this. This cake was for our friend and neighbor Darren on his big birthday. The bottom tier was a German chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling. The top tier was vanilla cake with strawberry filling. Both tiers were covered in butter cream icing and wrapped in a coffin of chocolate fondant. On the bottom layer, I added tombstones of marbled fondant and bright fondant pumpkins. I drew on the wording (and the bats) with a food writer marker, then added a little greenery and candy bones to finish it off. For the final touch, I brushed on a coat of luster dust and sprinkled on some edible star glitter for a spooky night sky. On the top tier, I free-hand piped a spooky design in orange frosting and added white chocolate sculls around the sides. For the top of the cake, I crumbled a chocolate cupcake and stuck the crumbs on top with some chocolate frosting. Then I balanced a cupcake on a large flower nail in the middle. To hold the cupcake, I created a skeleton hand poking out of the "dirt". I dipped pretzel twists (and smaller pretzel pieces) in white chocolate and chilled them to harden. Once the chocolate was set, I pieced the pretzel bones into a hand, using melted chocolate to glue the pieces together. (I have to admit, I impressed myself with this idea!) Then I topped the cupcake with chocolate frosting and a big chocolate "4" and "0". I put a few white chocolate bones on top of the dirt and piped on a birthday message to finish my spooky masterpiece. The best part of this project: I actually got to eat a slice! Happy 40th Darren! We'll drink to that! ;)