Spirited Away Cake: No Face's Feast

Hello!

If you've ever watched Hayao Miyazaki's award winning film "Spirited Away,' you might recall a certain food scene. In it, No-Face, a spirit, ravenously consumes pounds of delicious food in front of his hosts. Miyazaki is such a master with animated food I felt compelled to make a cake honoring such a fun scene.

Be warned though, this is not an easy cake! It took me wayyy to long to finish inbetween work and school. If anyone wants to re-create this, I have suggestions on each step to make the process a little easier. :)

Enough rambling, onto the cake!

(no-face drawing by Valentina Hramov)

Cake ingredients:

*DOUBLE THE RECIPE*

• 12 oz (340 g) flour
• 2 1/2 tsp (2 1/2 tsp) baking powder
• 1/2 tsp (1/2 tsp) salt
• 8 oz (227 g) unsalted butter room temp
• 12 oz (340 g) granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp (1 Tbsp) vanilla extract
• 4 large (4 large) eggs room temp
• 8 oz (227 g) milk room temp
• 2 oz (57 g) oil
• Food coloring

I used Liz's "Vanilla Sculpted Cake" recipe here: https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/vanilla-sculpted-...

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and prepare your cake pans. I used a one large sheet pan for this cake, but you can use two smaller ones if you prefer.

2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt, whisk, and set aside.

3. Using a stand mixer or hand beater, cream the butter for 20 seconds, or until smooth.

4. Then, sprinkle in the sugar and whip on med-high until light in color and fluffy (about 8-10 minutes.) Scrape the bowl halfway through mixing.

5. Bring back to low mixing, adding in eggs one at a time. Let it fully mix for one minute fore adding the next egg. The mixture should look smooth, not broken or lumpy. (Liz says if it is, your eggs might have been too cold.)

6. Add your vanilla and oil to your milk

7. Add your flour in four parts, alternating with the milk. Start with flour, mix until just incorporated, then add 1/3 of the milk. Repeat in alternating steps beginning and ending with flour. Let mix for 10 more seconds then stop.

9. Put a third of your batter into another bowl. Color the smaller bowl bright yellow/gold, and the larger bowl a peachy/lighter gold. This is meant to represent No-Face's magic ability to create gold instantly!

10. Pour a thin layer of the lighter gold batter into the bottom of your pan/pans. Then, plop your yellow batter hap-hazardly. Repeat with the lighter gold batter, then the yellow, until you're out of batter. Hopefully, this will look marbled when you cut into the baked cake.

8. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Do not over-bake or your cake will shrink.

Suggestions:

• I believe my cake was overbaked. Don't overbake your cake!
• In hindsight, I think two cake pans would have been better than one. Our cake was quite dense and chewy, two pans would have made it a little fluffier.
• Don't be afraid to make your cake batter extra bright, I wish I would have! The end result of this one blended together quite a bit.

Supplies:

• Cereal box
• Bathhouse background (provided above)
• Aluminum foil
• Pizza box
• Duct tape

Steps:

1. Cut a cereal box along its side and lay it flat.
2. Split the bathhouse background according to your printer dimensions (or don't split it, if your printer can print like that!)
3. Glue the background to the cereal box and trim to your preferences.
4. Use two pieces of scrap cardboard to create a triangle, then ductape both pieces onto the back of the cereal box as a stand.
5. Cut a pizza box into a square, making sure the length is the same length as the background, then snip two corners off.
6. Wrap the box in aluminum foil.
7. Align the background and box, then trim if anything overhangs.

Suggestions:

• The dimensions of the original cake board was 14x14.5 inches. I shrunk it to 12x12 inches for the board, and 73/4x10 for the cake itself. If you wanted to fit every piece of food onto the cake, the original board dimensions and a scaled up cake may help. However, you may have more gaps of the base modeling chocolate compared to my finished cake.
• Don't be afraid to cut up the background if it doesn't fit! Originally, I had the whole bathhouse picture, but I trimmed it back to just the water lever.

We'll need a ton of modeling chocolate for the bathhouse, the food, and No-Face himself. You could use fondant for this step. but modeling chocolate is a little tastier. Modeling chocolate is easier to sculpt as well, however, it does warm faster. I used this recipe for my toad cake instructable, so I know it works.

Supplies:

• 2 cups corn syrup
• 10 cups (454 grams) chocolate almond bark (light and dark chocolate)

*DOUBLE THE RECIPE*

I used Liz's recipe here: https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/modeling-chocola...

Steps:

1. Put the stove top on medium heat.
2. Melt the chocolate until it's smooth.
3. Add the corn syrup slowly when the chocolate is still hot, then stir it in until it resembles the consistency of unpulled taffy.
4. Dump the mixture onto some plastic wrap, spread it out, then seal it and place it in the fridge.
5. Cool overnight. Repeat for white and dark chocolate modeling chocolate.

Suggestions:

• Make more modeling chocolate than you think you'll need! I doubled the recipe, and I still think I could have used a little more white modeling chocolate. And if you make too much, you can always freeze it for future projects.
• If you're making an Instructable, don't forget to take pictures of your modeling chocolate like I did. :( Maybe you'll get lucky and already have some pictures on hand, but always double-check before moving to your next step!

Ingredients:

• 16 ounces (454 g) granulated sugar
• 8 ounces (227 g) water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 large (264 g) egg whites
• 24 ounces (680 g) unsalted butter softened
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Food coloring

I used Liz's "Classic Italian Meringue Buttercream" recipe here: https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/italian-meringue-...

Steps:

1. On a stovetop, mix together the water and sugar. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil on medium-high heat.
2. Keep the lid on for 3-4 minutes and ensure all the sugar granules are dissolved.
3. Remove the lid, insert a candy thermometer carefully and continue cooking on medium-high until the syrup reaches 240° F.
4. When the sugar solution is at about 235° F, begin whipping the egg whites on high speed.
5. Add the salt to the egg whites.
6. When the egg whites reach soft peaks, pour the sugar solution in a steady stream on to the whipping whites while mixing on low speed. Be careful, the sugar is still extremely hot!
7. Continue whipping the egg/sugar mixture until it reaches stiff peaks. (Liz wraps an apron around the bowl with an ice pack to help the meringue cool down faster.)
8. Once the meringue is cooled, whip in soft butter and vanilla until the buttercream is light and fluffy and no longer has a butter taste. This can take from 10-15 minutes.
9. We thought caramel would be a good flavor to complement the vanilla flavor and gold coloring. Add a tablespoon of caramel syrup, then mix. Taste it, and add if you'd like. Add a little at a time so you don't wreck the frosting.

10. Add yellow and orange food coloring to achieve a light gold color.

Supplies:

• Cake
• Frosting
• Aluminum cake base

Steps:

1. Cut the caramelization off the top and bottom of your cake.
2. If your cake is in one pan, cut it in half so you have two pieces. Trim it so it fits comfortably onto your cake board. *KEEP THE CAKE SCRAPS, YOU WILL NEED THEM LATER* If you want to, add simple syrup to your cakes and wait for it to soak in.
3. Slap a good amount of frosting onto one of your cake pieces. Not too much, unless you like frosting more than cake.
4. Place your other cake piece on top of your frosting layer.
5. Add a large amount of frosting ontop of your cake, then cover the entire cake in a thin layer of frosting. Insert into the fridge to chill overnight or for at least 3 hours.
6. Lightly draw a semi-circle towards the top of the cake. This is where No-Face will be sitting later. Cut a thin layer away so the circle is lower than the rest of the cake.
7. Draw a larger semi-circle, then carve the sides so they're rounded.
8. Add cake scraps to the side of the larger circle, starting with larger pieces on the bottom, and ending with smaller pieces on top.
9. Carve so the circles begin to resemble a bathtub. It doesn't have to be perfect, we'll be covering it in modeling chocolate later.
10. To make the bathtub appear taller, trim away a thin layer of the rest of the cake (where the food will be sitting).
11. Lightly ice the entire cake again, and chill overnight or for 3 hours at least.

Suggestions:

• Honestly, If you want to actually eat this cake, I would make the cake AFTER you have your decorations. Otherwise, your cake may be dry or gross.
• I added WAYY too much frosting inbetween the cake layers. To get a good idea of how much frosting you have ontop of the cake, level the sides of the cake.
• If you want the inside of the cake to really look like gold, consider adding gold sprinkles inbetween the cake laters. Or, try chunks of sea foam if you have all of your decorations finished!

Supplies:

• Frosted cake
• Modeling chocolate (dark and light)
• Food coloring
• Vodka (vodka evaportates no need to worry about getting tipsy on cake)

Steps:

1. To make your colored modeling chocolate, fold gel food coloring in slowly, and mix until the color is uniform.
2. Mix teal modeling chocolate and drape it over the base of your cake (the non-bath part). Score lines into it to mimic a plank texture.
3. Mix brown modeling chocolate and apply it to your cake board. Score lines into it to mimic a plank texture. Mix white and brown food coloring with vodka and lightly apply it to the planks for a wood-like texture.
4. Add dark chocolate to the lip of the bathtub.
5. Mix a tan color for the area below the dark chocolate and apply it to the cake.
6. Mix some light blue food coloring and drape it into and over the bathtub to mimic water. Add ripples using a cake sculpting tool or toothpicks.

Supplies

• Fondant
• Aluminum foil
• Food coloring
• Clay (doesn't have to be food safe)

We need something to hold some of our food items. If your cake if bigger, you can add more trays, but as mine is on the smaller side, I only made 7 or 8.

Steps:

1. Sculpt box shapes with your clay. If you don't have clay, use any box-shaped items you have lying around. Or, make a box out of aluminum foil.
2. Cover your clay/object in foil, making sure the sides are creased.
3. Use food coloring to color half of your fondant red, and the other half dark brown.
4. Roll out the red fondant, and gently place the brown fondant ontop of it, then roll your combined fondant gently.
5. Cut out a square bigger than your clay box.
6. Place the square ontop of the box, and manipulate it so it fits the box.
7. Peel the aluminum off the clay, and place the box aside. Wait for the fondant to dry, then trim the edges to your liking.

Suggestions:

• Your fondant should be thin, but not too thin, or it may crack.
• I repeated this process for some of the larger food bowls using measuring cups.

Supplies:

• Modeling chocolate
• Cake pop filling
• Food coloring
• Fondant
• Vodka
• Patience

Okay, we have a lot of food to make. So much food, I overestimated how much food there was, and how long it would take to make. I won't disclose my total food sculpting time, but let's just say I could have watched Spirited away many times over. Which I did.

Upon sculpting the third dish, I realized I couldn't do steps for each food individually, or the Instructable would become an epic. So, I decided to take a picture of the finished food and place the on-screen version above it. As you can tell, some of my foods aren't as accurate as the originals, but that's okay (I'm not planning on redoing this anytime soon, lol!). Don't stress about the accuracy, just have fun and enjoy your little buffet of petite treats.

Suggestions:

• To give the illusion of a lot of food/a deeper bowl, sculpt your bowl, then fill it with a cake pop mixture (in the next step). This will save you modeling chocolate, and you basically made a cakepop. :)
• To create the oval bowls, I cut an oval for the bottom, rolled a rectangle for the sides, wrapped the rectangle around the oval, and then blended them together.
• Do not put your finished modeling chocolate sculpture in the fridge. Beads of condensation will form, and may wreck your food. Remember, the chocolate and corn syrup are shelf-stable, so they will be okay if they're left out. Just put them in a space where a dog won't eat them and you're good!
• Mix your modeling chocolate colors before hand instead of painting it on. You can paint details on, like bowl trim or markings, but painting the whole food is messy.
• If your modeling chocolate is too warm, pop it into the fridge for a few minutes, then re-knead it. This isn't enough time for condensation to form.

Supplies:

• Cake pop filling
• Dark modeling chocolate
• Fondant
• Food coloring
• Toothpicks
• Vodka

Steps:

1. Do you still have those cake scraps? Awesome! Crumble them into a mixing bowl.
2. Add a small amount of buttercream. Gently mix with a spoon.
3. Mix with your hands until the mixture resembles cake pop-dough. If it's too dry, add a little more buttercream until it reaches your desired texture. IF you need more cake scraps and you're all out, crumble up animal or graham crackers and add them to the mix until it's thicker.
4. Shape the cake dough into a blob-ish shape. The top should be thinner than the bottom. It's okay if it doesn't look beautiful, as No-Face is bumpy and blobby in the movie.
5. Roll a medium sheet of black-tinted dark chocolate modeling chocolate. Drape it over your cake pop blob, and smooth it gently. To add his hair, cut some brown modeling chocolate into spikes and add it to the top.
6. Roll a small ball of fondant, and squish it into an oval.
7. Use vodka and food coloring to paint his face. If you screw up, use more vodka to wipe the food coloring away.
8. Use a little buttercream to adhere his dried face to the cake pop blob.
9. Wrap two toothpicks in dark modeling chocolate.
10. Sculpt two tiny, outstretched hands. They don't have to look great, he is a spirit afterall.
11. Add the hands to the toothpicks, and gently insert them into No-Face. If the hands are too soft to press in, place them in the fridge for 10 minutes and try again.

You made it!!

Phew, what a complicated Instructable. We're almost finished! This last step is the most fun, and it requires the least amount of effort.

Supplies:

• Bath cake
• No-Face
• Bathhouse background
• Alllllllll the food.
• Buttercream
• Toothpicks

Steps:

1. Add a little buttercream to the back of the cake, preferably towards the bottom.
2. Gently press the bathhouse background into the cake.
3. Add a small amount of buttercream into the center of the bath. Carefully add No-Face. You may have to trim his backside to make the background stand straight. It's okay, he doesn't mind.
4. Slowly add your food to the surface of the cake. If the food doesn't stick, add a small amount of buttercream. If the food is on the edge of the cake or an angle, gently insert a toothpick into the cake, and press your food onto it.
5. Step back and enjoy your hard work.

And we're finished. Thank you for reading through this Instructable, I had a fun time making it AND the cake! If you want to make the cake even crazier, sculpt the frog-workers or add little hands inbetween the food. If I'm being honest though, I'm not expecting too many people to make this as a cake. However, cupcakes would be a fantastic idea, and much easier to execute. If you want to take the plunge though, all power to you! I won't give you any gold though. (unless your name is Chihiro... ) :)