Mickey Rooney is having a Halloween party and of course all of his friends pitch in to bring snacks for the party. For the occasion his frequent co-stars Ann Rutherford and Judy Garland help Mickey’s mother make a cake. Or that’s what Modern Screen Nov. 1941 says.

“Ann and Judy are helping Mickey’s mother with the party,” the magazine article by Helen Holmes said. “Mickey wants to doughnuts and fresh country cider, his mother thinks that sandwiches and coffee would be nice, and hte girls want to try the Hallowe’en cake for which we are giving the recipe.”

The cake in question is a three layer chocolate cake with orange-flavored icing decorated with chocolate cream candies painted with icing as ghosts. (The recipe will be provided below).

Last Halloween, I had a such a good time making Jackie Cooper’s Halloween party treats that I decided to try another one of these film fan magazine recipes geared for a holiday event.

As I noted last year, I am no expert cook, but I get by. I don’t make many cakes from scratch (Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines and Pillsbury boxed cakes are A-Okay with me! But always homemade icing), so I always forget how much longer they can take.

Cake recipe: 

Orange-flavored icing recipe:

My review:
Overall, the cake wasn’t necessarily difficult to make. I did think it was interesting to combine ingredients in three separate bowls and then combine them into one, but again, this could just be me thinking it’s weird because I don’t make cakes from scratch.

The amount of cake batter that the recipe made almost didn’t seem like enough for three layers with my cake pans. It seemed better suited for a two layer cake. Because of this, I didn’t fill the cake pans to the brim with batter to be sure there was enough for three layers.

As for the icing, I was about to substitute the icing with vanilla buttercream or seven-minute icing. I usually don’t enjoy fruit flavored cake fillings and was uncertain about how the orange icing would taste on a chocolate cake. In the end, I decided to stick with the Modern Screen recipe and was pleasantly surprised that the icing was quite good and was tasty on the cake! I only made one alteration – after adding all of the orange juice mentioned in the recipe, the icing was still too thick to spread so I added 1 tablespoon of milk to make the icing more spreadable. I liked the light orange flavoring the icing had, so I didn’t want to add more orange juice and make it too overpowering. I also added a bit of orange food coloring so that the icing would appear more orange for the cake.

Lastly, for my chocolate candy ghosts, I used Zachary Old Fashioned Vanilla Cream Drops, which are in the candy section of my grocery store. They were the perfect shape and size for little ghost figures. To decorate, I used white, cookie decorating icing.

The cake ended up being very good and the icing reminded me of a topping I’ve had on cinnamon buns. However, I highly doubt Ann Rutherford and Judy Garland actually made this cake.

The Modern Screen article mentioned Halloween decorations by Ann Rutherford, and I wish that had been included as well.

You can find the full write-up on the recipe in Modern Screen magazine here.

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