Halloween is just around the corner and I am so excited!  I love all things Halloween!  This month for the Disney Blog Hop, the theme is "splurges".  I was wondering how I could tie that theme into my blog, then I thought about my last trip to Disneyland Resort.  We had "splurged" on tickets to Mickey's Halloween Party!  I wrote a pretty detailed review here, needless to say, I found the experience to be worth the extra dough.  It wasn't as crowded, the parade and fireworks were awesome and the kids got enough candy to last us a year in the trick-or-treat lines. We saw and interacted with so many characters too!  This year the party has moved over to Disney's California Adventure Park where Oogie Boogie is running the show;). I have clients heading there this year and can't wait to hear all about it!





The main eye candy (haha, candy) when you walk into Disneyland Park during the Fall season is the ginormous Mickey Pumpkin in the middle of Main Street.  You can grab a family photo (if you don't mind waiting in line) or just sneak a side photo;). In the evening it is lit up and brings the fun, spooky feeling into the park!

So I decided to make the Mickey Pumpkin head into cake form!  I will admit, shaped cakes are not my specialty (after 12 years of making cakes professionally), but I wanted to show you how easy it can be if you have a will and some patience;)

I started with baking 2 half sphere pans with vanilla bean cake.  The sphere pans are from wilton.  I then baked a vanilla bean cake colored orange in a normal 6" cake pan.  I trimmed the edges after they were cooled.  Filled and stacked.  I covered the filled cake with Saran Wrap, put the bottom back in the sphere pan to retain it's shape and put it in the freezer for 20 minutes before icing.

P.S.  I LOVE Fancy Sprinkles!

I was struggling a bit with the cake wanting to roll away, haha!, then I remembered I had a structure set from Cake Frame! Worked like a charm keeping that baby steady.  You have to be patient with the icing part, especially if your a little OCD like me, but this technique can be used to make so many different sphere shaped cakes, like a planet, emoji, Pokemon Ball, etc!

Pro Tip:I measured the same amount of fondant on a food scale for each of the ears so they would be the same size.

Using the same Dresden tool used for the cake I made mini pumpkins, perfect for cupcakes too!!

Here is the full time-lapse video!





Let me know if you're going to give this a go!  What's your favorite treat to make for Halloween?