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It's quite the departure from the pretty, floral designs you typically see on a birthday cake, but we are big fans of this 25-pound rat cake from Shakar Bakery. Owner Shantal Der Boghosian was commissioned by Laemmle Theatre in North Hollywood to create this unsettling dessert for their Joan Crawford double feature last night, celebrating Crawford's birthday 100-something birthday. (Like any Hollywood actress, Crawford's actual birth year is unclear, with sources listing it as somewhere between 1904 and 1908.) The cake they wanted was a replica of the dead rat served to Crawford by her treacherous sister in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.
Der Boghosian told LAist that the cake weighs in at 25 pounds and measures two feet long.
"Everything you see is sculpted with fondant," she said. "The rat is entirely made from cake except for the bottom thighs, which are Rice Krispies."
1962's What Ever Happened to baby Jane stars Joan Crawford as Blanche, a once-successful film actress who becomes paralyzed from the waist down after a car crash. She lives in a Hollywood mansion with her sister Jane, a former child star and a heavy drinker who starts exhibiting some pretty weird and erratic behavior. In one iconic scene, Blanche attempts to eat her lunch, only to find that Jane has served her a dead red on a silver platter.
See more of Shakar Bakery's cake art on Instagram here.
