Jessica’s Doppleganger

Halloween came a little late at the Cake Art Studio, because this week I made my all-time creepiest cake.

A little background is probably in order. My dear niece Eileen (she has a lovely name, doesn’t she?) and “Jessica” go way back. “Jessica” is a favorite relic from Eileen’s childhood. I won’t go into the entire history here, but I will say that I’ve always found Jessica to be slightly more than a little scary.

When my sister decided to throw a surprise birthday party for Eileen’s 30th birthday, someone, I’m not really sure who started it, thought we should have a cake replica of Jessica for the celebration.

I'll admit that I had way more fun than is probably healthy making this cake. I stacked up 8 layers of pumpkin cake (yes, Jessica is a punkin-head) with cream cheese frosting and carved the shape of the head. The features were too fine to carve out of cake, so I added a base for the features with fondant---Oh, sorry, did I scare you? Obviously, the original Jessica is on the right and the half-finished cake is on the left. Next, I added the eyeballs and covered the cake with buttercream. Just keeps getting creepier, doesn’t it? Finally, I covered the entire head in a layer of fondant, shaped the features, worked in the creases and details, and put on her lipstick. Jessica was ready for the party…But wait, first she had to spend a night in the refrigerator. So this is when things got really bizarre. My husband quipped, “this is like Tony Soprano’s refrigerator…open it up and find a head on a plate wrapped in plastic.” I told you I had more fun than is probably healthy. I’ll spare you the photos of the cake cutting….