This year I have become addicted to the Halloween-themed shows on the Food Network, shows like HALLOWEEN WARS and HALLOWEEN BAKING CHAMPIONSHIP. If you take the Horror spin away, I wouldn’t and couldn’t possibly care any less about a cooking show of any kind, but there’s something about the haunted holiday aesthetic that makes it fascinating.
Just last night (as I sit typing these words) I watched an episode of this year’s HALLOWEEN WARS. You have teams made up of cake artists, sugar artists, and pumpkin carvers who are given timed challenges to create a piece incorporating all three elements—cake, sugar designs, and pumpkins—based on an idea they are given from the judges. The theme for this particular episode was “haunted road trips”, and one team created a piece that featured werewolves. It didn’t win; in fact it came near to losing, because the team painted their backdrop, a monstrous Mt. Rushmore, the same color as their werewolf figures in the foreground. I thought the piece was among the most impressive. To be fair, one featuring zombies, the one that ended up winning, was slightly better. Still, the werewolf design, I thought, deserved far more credit than it received. Check out the detail on the beast! And it’s made out of modeling chocolate and cake!