Make room for one more reveler at your table. This clever cake is sure to be the life of the party--and there's plenty to go around, or to save for a special dessert on New Year's Day.

Ingredients

• Baked 8-inch square cake
• Baked 8-inch round cake
• Chocolate and red frosting (about 3 cups of each)

• Tubes of yellow and white decorators' icing
• Decorations: black and red licorice, M&M's, Necco wafers, chocolate coins, party noisemaker

Instructions

1. Cut the square cake as shown to make pieces A, B, and C, and cut the round cake to make pieces D and E. Position the pieces as shown, then frost the face (E) with chocolate frosting and the hat (A and D) with red.

2. Using decorator's icing, pipe on yellow hair (B and C) and write the new year in white on the hat. Decorate the face with a shoestring licorice smile, an M&M nose, and eyes made from M&M's iced onto white Necco wafers. Using kitchen shears--parents only--snip in half chocolate coins (still in the gold wrappers) and press them onto the brim of the hat.

3. Make a pom-pom by cutting lengths of licorice and poking them into the top of the hat. Add more coins, M&M's, and icing as desired. Last, but not least, poke a noisemaker into the partygoer's mouth.

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Find more about:

• Holiday & Seasonal Cakes |
• New Year

Related Categories:

• New Year's Recipes |
• December/January 2000 |
• Holiday & Seasonal Cakes