Jack-O-Lantern Candy Bucket Cake - Practice!

I knew I was going to make this cake the day my FoodNetwork magazine arrived.  I love their fun cakes and I've done several of them including the Cheeseburger Cake, Candy Bar Cake and perhaps my favorite, the Spaghetti and Meatballs Cake!

This was my practice effort at this cake.  I will be having a drawing later in the month as a fundraiser for my Breast Cancer 3-Day walk.  For a small donation to my walk I'll be giving away chances to win an exact (well not exactly, I'll do better next time!) replica of this cake.  How fun will that be at your Halloween party?



So how do you make it?  You start with two Bundt cakes and an 8" round.  My Bundt pans aren't identical, one is an old metal one and the other is Pampered Chef stoneware so they came out a little different in shape but the same diameter which was good!

Once the cakes are baked and cooled the bottom of the "pumpkin" is frosted.  Add the middle layer, the 8" round cake, and frost the top of that.  Next time I'll do a 9" round however.  The 8" round left a big gap that I had to fill with frosting.

Finally add the second bundt to the top and frost the entire thing with orange frosting.  At this point the cake weighs a ton!  Into the frig it goes to firm up a bit while you make the fondant.

I made the fondant as directed.  Next time I won't.  I think I'll roll it thinner for one thing.  Who actually likes the taste of fondant?  And I won't taper the edges as much as they showed in the pictures, especially at the bottom!  It left big gaps.  I noticed that their cake was on a plate that had a high edge so you can't see the bottoms of their strips!  This particular unsightliness will be fixed for the "real" cake. 

Next you cut out the face and fill it in with chocolate frosting.  I'll admit I rushed this tonight so it's a little sloppy but this was just for practice right?

The other thing I changed from the FN directions was the top.  In their directions they say to cut a one-inch deep circle in the top of the cake.  This is after it's frosted and there's no instruction to refrost!  So next time I'll cut the hole out before I do the fondant and frost it so lots of treats will fit.  This time I just put a little plastic wrap in the hole to keep the candy wrappers clean.  It worked!

So what do you think?  Want one of these for your Halloween party?  Watch my 3-Day Blog site for details!