Terrific Cakes: It Follows - Pass Around Party Pavlova
Jump to the cake!
A Return to Horror
It Follows is a special movie in my personal horror movie pantheon because it brought me back to horror in a BIG way.
I grew up on horror (as well documented in basically every post I write), but during the aughts I largely stepped away from them, in no small part thanks to 2004’s Saw.
In 2002 I had the best horror experience of my life when friends and I went to see The Ring on Halloween. It was my freshman year of college and the show was sold out. I’d never had, and have never had since, such an intense experience at a movie. You could feel the anxiety and terror growing and thickening as the movie reached its climax. By the time Samara climbed out of the TV people were literally running out of the theater screaming. It was not only a memory burned into my brain, but a lesson in collective histeria.
Approximately two years later when I went to see Saw in the same theater, I left frustrated and angry. I thought the movie was sloppy in all of horror’s worst ways. I found it comically underwritten, badly directed, and, most egregious of all, a story that lingered gratuitously on the dehumanizing and exploitative aspects of its story, focusing on how it killed people more than who or why they died. Saw felt like a smut film. It killed bodies, not characters. It presented impossible escape rooms to the audience and then cheered when the traps’ jaws snapped shut (on human heads). It heralded its killer as a genius and savior. Saw felt exploitative and dangerous, the kind of movie that inspires domestic terrorism.
Then came Hostel. Then even more Saws. Then Rob Zombie. Then remakes of classics like House of Wax lingering on skin ripping and flesh melting. I’m curious to revisit these movies as I’ve heard a lot of interesting discourse recontextualizing them. I wonder if I’d look back at those movies with kinder eyes now? But at the time, there was enough torture and violence in the real world.
I’m not saying there weren’t some great movies during this time (Jennifer’s Body, Cloverfield, The Descent) but I approached horror with a lot more apprehension after I watched Saw. As a child of the 90’s and devourer of the slasher franchises, it felt like horror was going back to its mid-eighties villain-as-superstar roots. I didn’t need Hellraiser 3 again, thanks.
And then I heard about It Follows. How insidious it was. How terrifying. How subtle.
I watched it.
And watched it.
And watched it.
It fOllows Threads a Perfect Needle
From the opening, It Follows establishes its setting while subtly disorienting the viewer in its specificity, vagueness, and timelessness. The houses, the clothing, the cars, and the technology all feel like they could be from anytime in the last thirty years, and yet they somehow also feel like they’re in our slightly dilapidated future. It feels like this could be any middle class suburb of most large cities in America or Canada.
The film is suffused with an almost ethereal glow and tranquility. Its patient, slow-moving antagonist feels almost like a part of this scenery, somehow endemic to the environment as much as it is a malevolence to its inhabitants.
The characters are given depth and personality quickly, even though they say very little and actually do very little. It’s difficult to understand if you haven’t seen the film, but It Follows captures the ennui of late adolescence and early adulthood so well. It feels like all the characters are sleep walking through life, waiting for a catalyst to propel them forward.
And when that catalyst hits?
Uff.
The betrayal that is Jay’s exposure to the entity rips the viewer from our collective malaise in a scene that is somehow beautiful, terrifying, and melancholic. The movie takes such a hard pivot so quickly that it’s velocity is a good portion of the terror. Perhaps what’s most shocking, though, is that after Jay’s drugging and abduction, the movie and its characters swing back to normalcy just as fast. They return to their everyday routines once the adrenaline of Jay’s assault dissipates. They try to move on, but soon realize they can’t.
If it sounds like I’m talking in circles, I kind of am.
The movie pendulums between nail-biting tension and tranquility in a way that feels too real to how we process trauma. Even once the horror begins, the characters eagerly return to their state of ennui as soon as they think they’re earned themselves a moment of relaxation, not that they ever are or ever could be safe again.
These senses of calms before storms, itself, is such an honest representation of our short lives. The timelessness of the movie’s design reinforces this throughout in beautiful, subtle ways. For every tragedy we experience, we search for and find moments of calm. We relish in boredom when given the opportunity, reserving our energy for flights and fights.
We ARE In A Golden Age of Horror
This is a phrase my movie club (Shannon!) and I throw around a lot.
Because we are. We are in a golden age of horror.
If you’ve never been a fan of horror, but still enjoyed Silence of the Lambs, Alien, Jaws, The Exorcist, or any of the other Oscar-level horror films, I formally invite you to return to the world of horror.
While torture porn horror’s influence has unfortunately infiltrated other genres (action and war), horror has taken an interesting turn away from it. [Aside: the most egregious example of torture porn’s spread that I can think of is in Jurassic World. In this otherwise innocuous action movie from 2015, the film takes 40 seconds to violently kill a character with practically no scene time before we’re forced to watch her gruesome, prolonged death. It’s unnecessary, mean-spirited, and disgusting. They spend so much time killing this character you’d think she was the film’s villain. It feels designed for violence-prone teen boys to cheer at… or to teach boys that women telling them what to do deserve prolonged, tortured, mutilated deaths. (If you haven’t seen it and need the evidence, here it is: Jurassic World’s murder of the Executive Assistant.)]
Classic horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Hellraiser franchise have always been praised by a legion of defenders for various reasons I’ve never fully understood. You can find effusive praise for the subtext of these films in books like Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Personally, the close reading that needed to be made for these films to be palatable were just never my brand of thrill. I’m sure there are people who get out of Texas what I get out of Alien, and to them I say, “Good for her!”
But lately?
A new generation of directors and studios (A24!) have been taking the subtext of franchises and making them the text. They’ve been taking the victims of our cinematic bloodbaths and making them the protagonists, not hesitating to have the movie lay out their thesis in a declarative, often female, queer, or BIPOC voice.
X recontextualized Texas to me in a way that made me appreciate the original while simultaneously exposing its greatest flaws.
Hellraiser (2022) spoke to me so much that I rewatched the original, read Clive Barker’s fiction, and appreciated it all with totally new eyes.
Barbarian set a new standard for horror and comedy, reminding us the real villains are rarely the monsters under our streets, and more often the ones next door.
It’s not that these new movies aren’t bloody, gory, or even torturous, but there’s a line walked between character, choice, and environment that make the last four to six years of horror truly something incredible. Even the remake of IT (2017 and 2019) fixed so many problems of the original while simultaneously exposing a new layer of societal terror in King’s work.
For me, this subtext as text trend started with It Follows. It reminded me of the best of classic terror by telling a thoroughly modern story of consequence and maturity. I think In 2007, this movie would have been uncomfortably violent towards its women; in 1997 this movie would have had 75% skimpier clothing for them; In 1987 this would have been about a man getting tricked by an evil, sexually crazed woman; and in 1977 this would have been a final girl story.
It Follows moves horror forward in an exciting and even more terrifying path. If you’ve never seen it, I really hope you give it a chance.
(And if that convinced you to try more golden age horror, also check out Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Prey, and Talk to Me along with the other movies mentioned above!)
Pass Around Party Pavlova (P.A.P.P)
When thinking about a cake for It Follows I immediately knew what I needed to model it off of: the shell e-reader that Yara uses throughout the movie.
Why?
Um…. because.
I don’t know what it is about this innocuous prop that captured my imagination so much, but it’s one of my favorite elements in the movie. The movie’s costumes, scenic design, and cars all suggest the movie could be taking place in the nineties or mid-aughts. But then this little piece of near-future technology throws your brain into a spiral. It’s a little hint that we don’t know when these events happen. It’s such a subtle infusion of manipulative design and I LOVE it.
So I thought… something like the entity that gets passed around + e-shell reader + big enough for a group of people = Pass Around Party Pavlova!
What a soft, simple, design…
What a fugly skank.
I REALLY did not dial in the colors and textures of this bake before I made it…
The Perils of Getting Passed Around
Discoloration and Loss of Definition
I’ve made more than my share of pavlovas over the years, so the basic recipe for this was not a problem.
Pavlovas are actually very easy to make: whip up some egg whites, add some sugar, a splash of vinegar and corn starch (or cream of tartar), spread it out, bake for an hour, and then let the baked meringue dry out in your warm oven for another two or three hours. Once it’s all crispy, add some berries and whipped cream and you’ve got a quick, delicious, deceptively-easy-yet-somehow-fancy dessert.
The issues I had with this design dealt with its color and shape. I wanted this to be a bright, glossy pink shell with ribbed textures. Unfortunately I forgot that pavlovas dull as they bake. The interior of a pavlova retains whatever bright shade you’ve dyed it, but the outside always gets a little dull. For really vibrant colors, you need to overcolor the meringue.
For the shape, I was generally happy with it (although you could tell me this was a foot or a baseball glove instead of a shell and I’d believe you), but I should have added a glycerin sheen and perhaps some more sparkle to give it a shell-like finish. Adding a shellac of sugar and then studding it with pearl sprinkles would have helped my P.A.P.P. be more mermaid-Barbie and less pavlova-that-needs-a-pedicure. Next time!
Whatever shape you want your PAPP to be in, I’d recommend creating your shape with a spatula vs. piping the design. I tried both ways to make my shape and a spatula produced a significantly higher, chewier meringue.
Cracks and Seepage
Two things you’re always going to get with a P.A.P.P. are cracks and seepage.
You’ve really just got to lean into it as part of the experience.
I’m sure there’s some magic to making sure a shaped meringue retains its shape and internal structure through the baking, but in my experience it’s pretty dependent on ambient humidity.
Regardless of the crumbled wreckage of your pavlova’s long birth, whipped cream and berries cover all sorts of sins.
Video Vixen
This was an interesting cake to film because so much of the process is done in a mixer and on a sheet of parchment paper. I don’t have a great way to film POV work, so you’ll have to trust that it was very easy to do!
I watch a lot of YouTube baking videos and I think my general aim is to present an appearance of mild competence and enthusiastic experimentation. There are so many incredibly talented bakers making great how-to content with years of professional experience backing up their claims. I’m a home baker who takes my shortcomings in stride and don’t let them stop me from trying every more outrageous ideas. The biggest thing I think I could do to make this more professional is to film my SECOND attempt at making a design, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. We’ll save that for a professionally produced series.
I’ve gotten a lot better in the last three years, which makes sense since I’ve probably made almost 200 cakes in that time, but sometimes it feels like I’m bumping up against a ceiling that I need a class or mentor to break me through.
Also, love it or hate it (although if you hate it… curious how you got this far down in the blog post), I use baking as a time to meditate and examine my thoughts. For Terrific Cakes, my discussion and thoughts about horror are just as important to me as becoming a better baker. It makes the videos probably less useful than a strict tutorial, but I hope it helps you examine your own opportunities to ponder while pavlova-ing.
Recipes and Sources
There are a TON of pavlova recipes out there, so feel free to use your favorite one. Here’s what I did.
PASS AROUND PARTY PAVLOVA (P.A.P.P.)
Prepare your ingredients.
8 egg whites
450 grams sugar
4 teaspoons corn flour
2 teaspoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons rose water (or vanilla or orange blossom or anything you want)
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees
On two separate parchments, draw the outline of whatever shape your P.A.P.P. will take. Turn these parchments drawing-side down on two baking sheets.
Whip your egg whites at medium-high speed until they hold a stiff peak (start the mixer at low until the eggs get a little foamy, then you can turn it up). Do NOT overmix.
Add sugar, one spoonful at time, allowing 20-30 seconds between spoonfuls so the granulated sugar has time to dissolve. If you have something finer like a caster sugar, you could probably add this a little faster.
Once the meringue is glossy and stiff, add the corn flour and liquid. This is also when you can add color to the meringue, but beware of adding too much liquid or you may deflate it.
Put half the meringue on each of your prepared parchments (did you remember to put the drawn-on side down so you don’t bake graphite or ink into your dessert?).
Spread the meringue to the edges of your design with an offset spatula. Take care not to deflate the meringue.
Bake for one hour until the meringue is firm to the touch. Turn off the ovens and leave the meringue in the oven for 2-3 hours to dry out.
Prepare your fruit.
The best pavlovas, in my opinion, just use chopped up fresh fruit, perhaps with a little bit of liquid drizzled over them from macerating the fruit with sugar for about half an hour.
You can also prepare a compote or jam, but keep it quite runny.
Make whipped cream
For this large of a pavlova I used 1 pint of whipped cream with 2 teaspoons of flavor extract and about 1/4 cup of powdered sugar.
Feel free to substitute your preferred whipped cream flavors and ratios. The pavlova is quite sweet, but I think almost all whipped cream benefits from a little sugar.
With the pavlova cooled, pick one of your layers to be the bottom and spread whipped cream and berries over it with abandon.
Place the other pavlova on top of your bottom and adorn with as many eyes as you feel is appropriate. My P.A.P.P. had blue raspberry gelatin eyes. You can find this recipe at the end of my post here.
Invite friends over.
Pass it around.
Pass it around.
Wash your hands.
Maybe give it another go? There’s still some left.
Is that a knock at the door?
But everyone’s here already.
Hello?
Hello?!
Open the door.
There’s no one there.
Or…
Hello?
Hello?!
Hello?!?!?!?!
It’s just your friend.
Wait…
!!!!!!!
Run screaming from a too-tall man ambling down the hall that only you can see.
Jump out the window and run into the night.
Never stop running.
Never stop screaming.
Pass it on.
Breath a little easier but always walk at least 3.5 mph from now on.
In my kitchen, everyone can hear me scream because I’m constantly burning myself!
