Grave Cake

This spooky cake is a lot of fun to build and sure to get a laugh from your guests.  Happy halloween.

Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients

• 1 box yellow cake mix, prepared according to package directions and baked in a 9"x13" pan.
• A large piece of cardboard, covered in aluminum foil
• 1 can white frosting
• Green food coloring
• A hair comb (new, not used 😊)
• 1 plastic tomb stone toy
• 1 can chocolate frosting
• Small pumpkins

Directions

1. Cut a rectangle out of the cake.  This will be the grave.  Try to keep the piece of removed cake in tact -- you're going to use it later.
2. Transfer the cake to your cardboard covered in aluminum foil.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the white frosting with green food coloring.  This will look like grass.  Keep a small amount of white frosting separate.
4. Frost the cake with the green frosting.  Use the comb to give it a bit of texture, and then attach the tombstone at the head of the grave.
5. Using the rectangle of cake from step #1, trim it into a coffin.  Place it on the cake and frost with chocolate frosting.
6. This is actually the hardest part of the cake because the coffin will tear.  I found it most successful to use a pastry bag and pipe the chocolate frosting onto the sides of the coffin.
7. Pipe the reserved white frosting onto the top of the coffin to outline its shape.
8. Place several small pumpkins on the cake.
9. Crumble the cake scraps from shaping the coffin and then spread the crumbs on the cake in a pile as dirt from the grave.
10. Store covered.