My cakes are like my children.  And just like your kids – it’s hard to pick a favourite.  But I think this one might be it!
I worked my little heart out on this one and had an absolute blast doing it too.  And yes I know I say that about every cake I make – but what can I say… I love my job!

This is now my 3rd time with the Sugar Spooks. I look forward to it each year! The talent in this collaboration is incredible and if I’m being honest… I’m completely intimidated by it.  But that is what also pushes me to try harder!

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This year I was really stuck for an idea of something to do.  So I put it to my sister, who then asked her students in Shanghai, for ideas for a creepy character for me to recreate.  After a few options one of them came up with the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth. BINGO! Loved it.  It was years since I saw the movie – so what better way to do some research than some daytime TV watching of a creepy Spanish movie.

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Now as much as I love freaking kids out on Halloween (yes I’m THAT house) – my own kids are fairly easily scared.  In fact, last year’s piece was completely made under a cloth so that it wouldn’t cause any nightmares for them.  This piece, I nervously didn’t cover – but the slow progression of it seemed to help them adjust. Even though they are a bit freaked out by his neck- they handled it well.  Proud mother or what!?  HA!

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pale-man-lovin-profile-pic_smGetting the Pale Man’s skin tone was the tricky bit.  As always, I used Vera Miklas modelling chocolate.  I love the way her modelling chocolate makes skin look almost semi-translucent.  But because he was fairly big I didn’t want to have to colour it all. Knowing me, I’d probably not colour enough of it and would then have to try and colour match more.  So I decided to tackle that problem after.  I’ve painted on modelling chocolate before – but this time I just didn’t like that coating that it left on top. So after a lot of mucking about I finally decided to paint the flesh colour with one brush and then blot and blend it in with another.  This ended up staining the chocolate as opposed to painting over top of it.  Loved the end result.

A bit of dusting and painting with vodka and some cocoa butter caked on blood.  Again it couldn’t end there.  I had to add some of the grapes that Ofelia ate off of the Pale Man’s table and a weird looking pomegranate,  some glycerine water droplets and there you have it.

DONE!  Please take a moment to watch my progress video that I made of it here. I hope you enjoy it!
Until next year, Sugar Spooks!

Pale Man Progress Video from Corinna Maguire on Vimeo.

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