An Angus Oblong (or Clown) Cake

Some of you might be familiar with my friend Angus Oblong's show, "The Oblongs" or with his book, "Creepy Susie: And 13 Other Tragic Tales for Troubled Children." He's one of the first people I met when I visited LA years ago and when he had a birthday, I knew I wanted to do something unique for him. So if you want to make a clown cake, why not put their face on it? Here's what I did:

First, I made two round 9" cakes and stacked them, using chocolate frosting in between the layers and around the sides. The dark sides draw more attention to the top of the cake, which is where you want people to be looking. Assuming the clown you choose has white face paint, then white frosting is what you'll want on top!

Next: the nose. In this case, a Hostess Sno Ball dyed red was the perfect size! Make more than one, just in case the color isn't to your liking. That way you can play around with how dark of a color you'd like for it to be.

Finally, grab a photo of your favorite clown and in a Word doc, measure out the size of their face to equal the size of the cake. Since this was a 9" round cake, I blew up the eyes to equal approximately 4" wide.

Print and cut out the eyes separately. Make sure the mouth is long enough to fit on the cake. If it's too long, you can trim it at the end.

And voila! Your Angus Oblong (or clown cake) is complete!

One thing to note, though: when you remove the eyes and mouth to actually eat the cake, make sure no kids are around or they might get the creeps (if they weren't already scared in the first place).

TOTAL COSTS: About $8
$2.99 for the cake mix
$3.99 for chocolate and vanilla frosting
$.99 for a Sno Balls
Printer, paper, scissors and food coloring already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 30 minutes (not including bake time)
This includes frosting the cake, printing out the eyes and mouth, cutting them out, and dying the nose

EASY PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
If you're not familiar with taking digital photos and resizing them, then you might have some difficulties getting the correct proportions. It just takes some trial and error but trust me, it doesn't get much easier to decorate a cake than using good 'ol paper!