A Halloween-themed birthday cake

There is almost nothing that I love more than cake. While I have never destroyed property just to greedily scarf down someone else's birthday cake, I have done quite a lot in the name of cake. Baking and decorating cakes isn't my strongest suit, but when I saw this crazy, beautiful, sprinkle-encrusted cake on Sprinkle Bakes, I knew that my favorite Spooky Friend was going to get an interpretation of it for her special birthday - complete with a giant gummy bear topper.

(No) thanks to some ill-timed baking, I had to throw away my from-scratch cakes and sub them with two boxed mixes that were on hand for cake emergencies. The frosting is pretty simple - butter, shortening, vanilla, salt, and lots of sugar.

Because Spooky Friend loves Halloween, I used only Halloween sprinkles - black, orange, purple, tiny pumpkins, non pareils, terrible-tasting-but-cute ghosts, candy corn, bizarre edible glitter, stars, Reeses Pieces, and (my favorite!) mellowcreme pumpkins.

It was my first time decorating a cake in...a year? It's not the best, but I think it fits the bill for a sprinkle and glitter fan like Spooky Friend.

Here's a hasty photo of a slice, topped off with a scoop of pumpkin ice cream. For a little surprise, I filled the cake with orange frosting and the middle layer was baked with orange and brown sprinkles. It paid off! When I served Spooky Friend a slice she said "Halloween through and through!" Yay!