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Over the
years we've collected
dozens of Halloween cake
and cookie pans. You can find them anywhere from high end stores to
dollar stores. We usually hit a mass market retailer like Wal-mart or
Target because they get a good variety of what we are looking for. We
have pumpkin cake pans, Jack O' Lantern cake pans, tombstone cake pans
and these, our favorite, skull cake pans!
These skull
cake pans we found a few years ago at Wal-mart. They had no
name brand on them so we don't know who made them but they
were made in China.
These cake
pans are about 10 inches by 8 inches and about 3 inches
thick at their thickest point. They aren't very big, one
cake won't take care of a party so we usually make two. We
can fit them side by side on a large cookie sheet to keep
them stable.
Use the color
and flavor of cake mix of your choice. We like to use red
velvet cake mix because it has that blood red look to it. We
frost it using white frosting with a touch of brown food
color paste mixed in to give it an aged color to it. Use
black to color in the eyes and nose holes and to outline the
teeth.
You can either use tube decorating frosting and a
line tip or make your own butter cream frosting and a tip
and pastry bag. It depends on how adept you are at cake
decorating out anyone can do it now days with all the ready
made products available. Check out our page on tips for
decorating, recipes
and info.
These are
also great for the Hispanic festival Día de los Muertos or
Day of the Dead. It's a Mexican holiday, celebrated in
Mexico, on November 1st and 2nd. It is done in connection
with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day (November 1)
and All Souls' Day (November 2), two holidays that
originally sprouted from Samhain (Sow-Wain), the Pagan
Celtic festival held for New Year, when the Catholic church
was trying to convert the Pagans to Christianity. Traditions connected with
the holiday include building private altars honoring the
deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite
foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with
these as gifts.
Our county
now has high Hispanic population and, as with other
traditions like Halloween which was brought here by the
Irish, Día de los Muertos is being celebrated here, too.
Usually in small family groups or neighborhood parties,
Mexican Americans will find these skull cake pans handy for
making cakes or giant sugar skulls.
The
decorations for Día de los Muertos are very colorful and
full of skulls, skeletons and lots of sweets. We've seen
some of the most beautifully decorated sugar skulls at a
friends in Los Angeles, California when we went for his
party. It's a nice way to honor the dead and a beautiful way
to extend our Halloween spirit!
Check out our article on making
Sugar Skulls, too!
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