Rat Novelty Birthday Cake

Everyone has heard of the Walt Disney Pixar film 'Ratatouille' staring Remy, a rat who dreams of becoming a chef. Well, this is the cake that became a rat! This is the best ever birthday or celebration cake - well, the best ever rat birthday or Halloween cake. Why? It is a quick, easy, no-bake, cheap cake that raises an instant laugh. It can't go wrong, tastes better on the second day and lasts quite a long time. Children love it, and if you're not keen on the rat, why not make a Fat Cat cake for the fat cats in your life? (Perfect for the boss??)

See more of our life in Les Trois Chenes Guest House and three star holiday cottage, Videix, Limousin, S W France.

The idea came to me when I was making food for Halloween, and I also thought back to the truffle cakes of my childhood. I suddenly realised that those cakes were made from all the left-overs of the day, and reproduced for sale on the morrow. I used to love them. They are also the perfect cake for making shapes. You have cake-clay in essence. Malleable when warm but will set fairly firmly in the fridge. I made mine very speedily, and it was the prototype, but you could take a little more care and come up with something even more life-like. You could really go to town on presentation. You could make lots of lovely flowers from fruits, sweets, marzipan and icing. You could create a 'dustbin' from cake and icing. Let your imagination run riot. I'll perhaps go to town a little more next year. Great for Halloween!

You might also like to check out this recipe which includes edible worms, mice and other ghoulish goodies: Nasty Nibbles for Halloween

• Plain, cheap, ready made cake from supermarket or you can use up your own left over cake
• Marzipan (not in picture because dog ate the last bit!)
• Dark cooking chocolate (I used one slab of chocolate and most of this cake)
• A little milk
• Pink marzipan for tail and ears
• Green or white marzipan or something else to make eyes; cake baubles, little sweets etc
• Flavouring: Rum, brandy, whisky or amaretto flavouring or the real thing for adults, for the kids, orange or almond. Anything you like really!
• Brown or black food colouring or red, yellow and blue colouring mixed together
• Chocolate vermicelli

You will also need

• Whiskers. I used bristles from a new washing up brush but if you can think of edible ones, that would be better
• A fine paint brush to paint the tail

• Melt the chocolate and milk, add the cake
• Mix together
• Keep adding cake until the mixture looks as if you could shape it
• Add flavourings or spirits
• Let it cool until you can mould it with your hands
• Form into a rat shape pointed at front and wider at the haunches
• Cover with chocolate vermicelli

And that is all there is to this bit! Simple.

Make the tail by rolling a ball of pink marzipan into a ball, then, using three fingers, roll it backwards and forwards until you have a thin 'sausage'. roll it more on one end so that it tapers to a point.

Use your brown or black food colouring, or mix a brown with red, blue and yellow, or red and green colour. Make a hole in the back of your rat and insert the tail.

For the eyes, again use pink marzipan, roll it into a little ball, then with thumb and forefinger pinch one side of the ball into an ear shape and curl it round at the base forming a little 'peg' at the bottom. Make a hole where the ear is going to go and then poke the peg into the hole.

I used white or green marzipan for the eyes, but only because I couldn't find anything better. You might be able to find little sweets or cake decorations that would look better.

For the whiskers I cut six bristles off a new washing up brush, but perhaps you have some better ideas for this too. Edible whiskers would be ideal as I was worried that someone would get a nylon whisker stuck in their throat! Do leave a message in the box below if you can think of anything.

Here is a twelve year old boy making this cake and it took him about ten minutes after I gave him the basic mix. How easy is that?

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