The perfect cake for Halloween

This spooktacular ghost cake is taken from Cakemoji, the most incredible book full of step-by-step cake recipes to recreate all of your favourite emojis. This cake makes the perfect treat for Halloween! 

Ghost Cake 

You will need:

Two 20cm square chocolate sponges
One quantity of filling in the flavour of your choice
One quantity of buttercream in the flavour of your choice
Small amounts of fondant in each of the colours needed to make the facial features: black, white and pink 
Small liquorice sweet
Oreo cookie
Paper template that can be found here 

1. Level and layer the sponges using the filling of your choice. Place the paper template for the body on the cake top and, using a sharp knife, cut around the edge.

2. Take the largest cake offcuts and place the arm templates on top. In the same way, cutting through all the sponge layers, cut around the edge of the templates to give one left and one right arm. 

3. Position the arms in the correct place using the paper template as a guide. 

4. Remove the paper templates and then, using some buttercream, stick the arms in position on the body. 

5. Crumbcoat the sponges with a thin layer of buttercream, using a small palette knife to work around the shaped cake. Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge. 

6. Using a small palette knife, cover the top and sides of the cake with a fresh quantity of buttercream. 

7. Roll out the coloured fondants to 3mm thickness. Using your templates and a sharp knife, cut out the facial features. For the eyes and mouth, cut from black fondant. For the tongue, cut from pink fondant. 

8. Place the blade of a sharp knife vertically along the centre of the pink fondant tongue. Lightly score a line, but be careful not to cut all the way through the fondant. 

9. Place the black fondant mouth on the cake top, pushing it slightly into the buttercream. Then add the pink fondant tongue on top of the mouth. Refer to the emoji to make sure each piece is in the right place. 

10. Place the small liquorice sweet in the correct position for the right eye. Finally, place the large Oreo cookie in the exact position for the larger left eye. And voila! Your ghost cake is complete. 

This is an edited extract from Cakemoji published by Quadrille Books, available from all good bookshops and online.