One Foot in the Grave Cake

by Rebecca Carlsen
(South Africa)

For my 40th birthday I decided to make a “one foot in the grave” cake. I made a large rectangular chocolate brownie cake with pistachio nuts and chunks of 3 colors of chocolate. (I baked it in a roasting pan).

This made a very firm cake which held the heavy marzipan gravestone well. I iced the entire cake with chocolate ganache (dark chocolate, cream & butter). I made some marzipan (using hazelnuts as well as almonds and some grated orange and lemon rind) and made a sausage shape for the mound in front of the gravestone which I also covered with ganache.

I then covered the mound with Milo (a malted chocolate drink powder similar to Ovaltine – it looks just like soil) but you could use chocolate biscuit crumbs or crumbled Cadbury Flake. I made a foot from fondant, using a cocktail stick to mark out the nails, then painted it with food coloring mixed with alcohol in a skin tone with red for the nails.

I place this on the grave with some more “soil” over it. I colored some dessicated coconut green for the grass and sprinkled it around the grave. I made 40 daisies from fondant icing (sugarpaste) as well as some leaves, using a leaf cutter, and placed them on the cake.

I shaped the gravestone from marzipan, then painted both sides with grey food coloring, using a darker grey to paint R.I.P.

I pushed 3 kebab sticks through the gravestone and into the cake to hold it up.

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