Cakes of Interest: Witch's Cauldron Mini Cake

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake…
— from MacBeth, Williams Shakespeare

Halloween cakes are some of the most fun to make. This is one of the few times of the year where black and bright green icing is appetizing. You can eat finger shaped cookies, cupcakes piped with brain guts, and crunchy spiders that taste like sprinkles!

In preparation for Halloween, I made over a dozen mini vanilla buttercream cakes shaped like witch’s cauldrons. I also recorded the process in a quick 1 minute video.

DECORATING A MINI WITCH’S CAULDRON CAKE

To begin making these mini cakes, start with 5″ cakes. You can bake mini cakes and torte them so that you have four layers of cake. Ice the layers with un-colored buttercream and stack the cake. When stacked, the cake should be at least 4″ tall.
Carve the top of the cake by slicing the excess off at an angle. The cake should be in the shape of a dome. Discard the excess.
Ice the cake with a generous layer of black buttercream. I am using DecoPac Premium Gel colors because they are highly concentrated. If you cannot find them, try The Sugar Art, Amoretti, or another brand of gel color. The better the quality, the more vibrant the color and less likely you’ll have a chemical aftertaste.
Smooth the icing using a cake scraper. Hold the scraper perpendicular to the cake board and smooth the surface of the cake. Move the scraper at an angle toward the top of the cake to round off the top.
Using a # 7 or #8 open cake tip, pipe a line along the base of the cake and over the top of the cake. Pipe “U” shaped handles on each side of the cauldron.
Using an airbrush, lightly spray dark brown airbrush color in light bursts and waves across the cauldron. This creates a worn look. I used DecoPac Premium Airbrush Harvest Brown.
Using a coupler tip, pipe bright lime green blobs inside the cauldron. I mixed Lemon Yellow with a drop of Grass Green.
I mixed the same combination of Lemon Yellow and Grass Green into a piping bag filled with premade vanilla icing.
Lean a chocolate straw (Belgian chocolate mistral duo) or pretzel stick along the side of the cauldron. Using a #133 grass tip, I piped broom bristles along the bottom of the stick.
Finish the cake with a final airbrush spray of pearl shimmer.