Nightmare Theatre Cake

Nightmare Theatre just wrapped up it's first season with our local PBS channel.  Nightmare Theatre for those not in the know is a horror host show that Mr. Husband Sir and two of his friends have been doing as a hobby for nearly 20 years.

To celebrate the final show I designed and baked a special cake to enjoy while watching the final episode. One of the props on the set is an old early 1980s black and white television set.  I thought it would be fun to make one similar out of cake!

Here are a few views:

The cake it's self is homemade from a recipe I found in a book called "Decorating Cakes and Party Foods Baking Too!" by Louise Spencer 1969 .  This book doesn't have very many pictures but it has great information. I picked it up from a thrift store about a year ago and it was well used (and loved) by the previous owner.  One of the pages for frosting recipes is stained and splattered from years of use.  The cake I made was from a recipe called "Old-Fashion Pound Cake" and was recommend by the author for two-piece molds due to it's firm texture.  I figured it would work well for three dimensional carved cakes too.

Recipe:

Preheat Oven 300 degrees

Grease and flour pan

1 cup butter

1 2/3 cups sugar

5 eggs

2 tsp extract (I used coconut and threw in some shredded coconut too)

2 cups sifted flour

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat the eggs in one at a time.  Add extract, beating at medium speed til blended.  Reduce mixer speed to low and fold in flour a tablespon at a time.  Pour into pre-pared pan.  Bake immediately about 1 1/2 hours.  Cool on cake rack 10 minutes before removing from pan.  Cool about a hour before frosting.

The cake texture was very dense and easy to work with while I was carving and shaping the cake.  I also liked the flavor.  I made the cake a couple of days before the event so I would have time to decorate it properly.  When eating it, it did seem a little dry, which could have been from it being made 2 days earlier (I did cover it though).  

For the decorations I made the knobs and other features out of pre-fab Wilton fondant.  I dyed the fondant with Wilton food coloring to get the grey color.  The wood grain part is fondant that I tinted brown and pressed the grain in using the end of a spoon.  The photo is a printed image that I laminated.  I decided to use a color image instead of what the TV would have been, black and white, so the cast would be more clear.  The antennae are bamboo food skewers painted silver.  The driving force that brought this cake together is the cake "glaze" I covered it in.  I found it at Joann's on clearance, and it was suppose to be black.  It's made by Cake Craft called Mirror Glaze, Voodoo Black. It worked out better I think with it being a dark brown.

I loved making this cake from the beginning to the end.  It was so much fun and relaxing. The cake was a hit with it's appearance but like I mentioned earlier was a bit dry and dense.
 However even with that I still liked the cake and the flavor.

Here is another electronic cake I made back in 2006

Radio Cake


And here are past Nightmare Theatre Posts you can tune in to!
El Sapo fan club
Nightmare Theatre Plan 9
Nightmare Theatre Revived

Tears of Shame
Horror Host Fame Crafty Wares Selling Suitcase 2018
El Sapo lassos the moon 2017
Criswell Predicts 2007
Scrap Crafty T-Shirt Corset 2006

Peek-a-Boo Tie 2006
Our Bizarre Bazaar 2005