My office has a Halloween carry-in every year, for which I like to make something unusual – I’ve made a meatloaf mummy, a haunted house cake, and a “Nightmare Before Christmas” cake, among other things.
This year I saw a picture of a roach cake online and thought “that’s a good idea”. But I made mine more life-like, using a photo as a guide.
I baked up 3 boxes of devil’s food cake, ending up with a large loaf, a bundt, 2 8-inch rounds, and a dozen cupcakes.
I didn’t know exactly how I was going put it together, but I ended up using all the shapes in one way or another.
The main body was the loaf, with the sharp edges trimmed off and the center hollowed out and filled with green-tinted vanilla pudding. I cut up the bundt for the sloping sides and back end, and part of the one of the rounds for the head. I used a cupcake or two to fill in gaps.
A tub of frosting was used as glue between the cake pieces, as well as a crumb layer over the whole cake.
I tinted fondant with black gel color for an initial all-over layer (which ended up being dark grey), then used up all my brown gel for the body – the color still wasn’t right, so I brushed watered-down copper gel over the body after it was put together.
To make the body, I rolled out the brown fondant to roughly the same shape as the cake, then cut curved strips and laid them on the body, starting at the back end, overlapping the edges slightly, like roofing shingles.
When I got to the “shoulders”, I added a little black to the brown fondant for one additional strip, then added more black gel to the black fondant for the head.
The legs are also black fondant, rolled, then snipped with small scissors, at an angle, to make the spines.
The watered-down gels also give the cake a nice sheen, so I did black on the head an legs and made the spots on the sides of the body.
I crumbled some cake around the platter (I had more than half of it left), and added some Tootsie Roll cat turds for an additional gross-out effect.
I had hoped the pudding would ooze out when the cake was cut, but it was too thick – it made a cool gross center, though!
I won First Prize!
(I took photos of the process, too)
Thanks!
Karen
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There is NO WAY I could eat that…it looks too real. Good job but gross!! LOL
too gross!
So how many hours/days did you have in this production?! They should put you on a Halloween cooking show. How about it Food network?!
I baked the cakes the night before, then put everything together in one evening. I waited until I got to my destination to attach the antennae (rolled black fondant).
Wow, you did such a wonderful job on this cake! I think that if you’re not doing it already you should be a professional cake decorator. Then you’d get paid to do fun stuff like this all the time! If you have any pictures of past cakes that you did you should post them too. Keep up the fabulous cake work!
That is the best scary cake I have seen! My co workers would LOVE it! Great job!
Congratulations! That cake is absolutely amazing – and totally life-like. Too life-like for me to eat but it looks fantastic. Well done!
AMAZING!!!!!!!!
THAT IS THE COOLEST CAKE I HAVE SEEN YOU DON’T SEE THAT HERE IN TEXAS GREAT JOB!
I had a hard enough time getting my co-workers to eat my toilet cake, I can’t imagine how hard it was for everyone to eat this one. Awesome job!
I love it.
THAT IS AWSOME BUT I WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO Be IN THE SAME ROOM WITH IT.
What a great fab cake.A mum in a million.
For my birthday party it is based on Halloween because it will be my 13th so Friday the 13th. I was going mad because I could not find a gross cake that was not the kitty liter cake and I really did not want that. I have decided to use your roach cake!! It looks gross and all the people coming to my party are really really scared of roaches! Thanks a lot I love this cake xxxx
Trust me you helped me a lot :D
My son has some hissing cockroaches as “pets” and this will be a great cake idea for his birthday. I am amazed at the cleverness of your cake. I hope mine turns out half so cute.
wow – “cute” – that’s a new one! Hope your boy enjoys it!
I wouldn’t be able to eat that….it looks way to real and especially if I saw the cake before it was cut uhhhhh(***CHILLLS***). Good job on the cake though!!It looks…WOW!!!
When I Googled Hissing cockroach cake, I didn’t think I’d actually get something! I am SO glad you put this up. Now I can at least attempt to make my almost 5 year old son the hissing cockroach birthday cake he is requesting!
THE most AWESOME cake ever =D I’ve got hissing roaches and you made a perfect copy.
I really love it
Will be getting started on this shortly. Daughter (just turned 20) wants it for her birthday cake! I love the decorating ideas for this, but will try to figure out how to make do with two boxes of cake mix. Just three of us, so we don’t need this big of a cake. LOL Thanks for the directions and the pics! Going to make it easier to look decent having pics to follow. :)