How to Make a Halloween Fault Line Cake

* Round Cake Decorating Turntable 26.5cm x 12cm

* PME Plain Edge Side Scraper

* Wilton 12-Inch Disposable Decorating Bags 24 Pack

* Betty Crocker Velvety Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing 400g

* Food Colouring in Bright Green, Orange, Lime Green, and Black

* Renshaw Icing Modelling Paste in White and Black

* Silver Spoon Icing Sugar

* Wilton No.233 Decorating Tip

* PME Round Plunger Cutters

* Black 10 Inch Round Cake Board

* 7” diameter round cake of your choice (the one used in this project is 5” high)

Start with your cake on the black cake board and add a crumb coat of buttercream.

Chill the cake in the fridge for an hour or until the crumb coat is firm.

Place the chilled cake on a turntable.

Use a cocktail stick to mark out roughly where you'd like your fault line to be.

Take a small bowl of vanilla frosting and colour it with the black food colouring. Use a small palette knife to fill in the marked area of the fault line with a thin layer of black frosting.

Hold the cake scraper against the side of the cake and use your other hand to turn the turntable and smooth the frosting flat all around the cake.

Remove any excess frosting from the scraper and repeat until you have a smooth black fault line.

Return the cake to the fridge and chill until the black frosting has firmed up.

Decant one pot of vanilla frosting into a bowl and mix in 1-2 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar – beat together until the frosting is thick and stiff enough to hold its' shape. Squeeze in the bright green food colouring (less than a pea size) to make a creepy monster shade!

Remove the cake from the fridge and use the palette knife to cover the whole cake except the fault line with a thick layer of green frosting – aim for 1cm thickness above and below the fault line. Use the same method as before to smooth the sides of the cake using the cake scraper in one hand and turning the cake with your other hand.

Top tip: the green frosting does not have to perfectly smooth here as it will be covered completely with monster fur! Any gnarly edges are perfect to add character to your monster.

Next, it's time to add the eyes to the fault line. Roll out the white flower paste to approximately 3mm thick on a surface dusted with icing sugar.

Use a variety of circle cutters and large piping nozzles to cut out pairs of eyes in various sizes.

Repeat with the black flower paste to make the pupils and stick these onto the whites with a little cool, boiled water or edible glue.

Attach your eyes to the fault line, using a little leftover black frosting if needed.

Now for the fun part – piping on the fur!

Top tip: you can use just the green frosting to cover the cake in fur or you can mix it up with different colours. The most important thing is that the frosting is stiff enough to hold its' shape as you pipe it onto the sides of the cake.

Fit a piping bag with the 'grass' piping nozzle and load up the bag with your desired colour of frosting.

Starting at the base, hold the nozzle at a 45° angle to the side of the cake and squeeze the bag to extrude the icing until it adheres to the cake. Pull away slowly to leave a small patch of 'fur'.

Continue to work in this way until the remainder of the green area is covered, including the sides and top, right up to the edges of the fault line.

Your cake is then ready to be placed on a cake stand on your Halloween table!