Boo-tiful Striped Halloween Birthday Cake

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1. Prepare meringues. Prepare meringue batter following recipe instructions. Prepare a decorating bag with tip 32 and fill with batter. Pipe 5 to 7 meringues in various sizes. Bake and cool.
   • Helpful Hint: Remaining batter can be used to pipe additional cookies that you can serve alongside the cake!
2. Bake cake. Prepare cake mix according to recipe instructions. Bake two 6-inch cake layers. Level and trim each layer to 2 1/2 inches high. Fill and stack for 5-inch high cake. Crumb coat and ice top of cake with white frosting.
3. Create “Boo” cake topper. Melt white candy according to package instructions and fill a disposable piping bag. Tape Boo template to cake board, then cover with parchment paper. Pipe “Boo” in white candy, following the template. Chill until ready to use.
4. Tint frosting. Using black food coloring, tint 1 cup frosting black. Prepare a decorating bag with tip 3 and fill with black frosting. Reserve remaining frosting white.
5. Create buttercream transfer. Measure the circumference of the cake (typically 18 to 20 inches) and cut a piece of parchment paper 5 in. tall by that long. Using a ruler, draw a horizontal line every half-inch – you should get 9 stripes. Flip the parchment over, place on a cake board or cookie sheet for stability and pipe even, straight black lines on each stripe. Set the parchment paper in the freezer for 15 minutes.
6. Finish buttercream transfer. Prepare a decorating bag with tip 10 and white frosting. Remove parchment paper from the freezer and carefully fill in space between black stripes with white frosting. Lightly smooth frosting. Place back into the freezer for 10 minutes.
7. Prepare ganache. Using 3 oz of Pink and 1/2 oz of Lavender candy plus 2 tablespoons of cream, prepare Candy Melts ganache following recipe instructions. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
8. Decorate cake. Once buttercream transfer is chilled but flexible, remove from the freezer and carefully wrap around the cake, leaving parchment paper in place. Gently smooth with hand, using light pressure to make sure transfer adheres to cake. Chill cake until transfer is set, about 10 minutes. Carefully peel off parchment paper.
9. Fill a decorating bag with ganache and snip the tip off. Pipe drips of ganache down one side of the cake, dotting with ghost sprinkles at the end of each drip.
10. Place a border of bat sprinkles around the bottom of the cake. Place meringues above ganache drips.
11. Using Gold Color Mist, spray candy topper gold. Let dry, about 10 minutes. Position on top of cake. If desired, attach a trimmed-down lollipop stick with melted candy to the back of the topper and let sit for 5-10 minutes, then place.