Terrific Cakes:Poltergeist - I’ve Been Twaumatized (Festive Log)
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Poltergeist
I don’t have a complicated relationship with Poltergeist.
It’s great.
It’s well-made, well-acted, tightly scripted, surprising, funny, heart-warming, and, above all, entertaining.
In a word: Spielbergian. Although this movie wasn’t technically directed by Steven Spielberg, it has his hands all over it. Let’s call it a Nightmare Before Christmas situation: he may not have directed the movie, but it was his idea and boy-oh-boy does it give you that mouthfeel.
Raised by POltergeist
I have no memory of seeing Poltergeist for the first time. This movie, like Alien, just feels like it was always part of my life. Movies like Poltergeist, Firestarter, and Gator were just part of a weekend afternoon ritual. My sisters and I would wake up and digest body-dysmorphic Saturday morning cartoons (He-Man, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… seriously how did any gay man escape the late-80s or early-90s not hating themselves for being simultaneously too fat and too small? The turtles had 18” biceps! The Skeleton had an 8-pack!), eat lunch, go play outside, and come back in (probably because it got too hot or our neighborhood friends weren’t around) to watch whatever movie was on weekend afternoon TV. It was almost always a PG action or horror movie from the 80s.
And let’s get that out of the way right away: Poltergeist is a horror movie.
Poltergeist is one of the horror classics that suffer from horror-hatred/reclassification. Like Alien, Jaws, or Silence of the Lambs, when a movie is too well-made, there’s a certain crowd of people, people who like capital “I” Important movies, that want to call it something else. Even Jordan Peele described Get Out as a “social thriller.”
Poltergeist may be rated PG, and it was often shown around 2PM, but someone rips their own face off. Skeletons explode out of the ground. A child is ripped from his bed and nearly eaten by a tree.
But I’ll admit, one of the reasons Poltergeist gets argued out of horror is because it’s not terribly scary. It doesn’t feel much scarier than Indiana Jones or Goonies. Seeing this movie at a young age didn’t scar me in the way Return to Oz or even The Witches did. I don’t remember anty Poltergeist fueled nightmares, even thought it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that I watched it when I was in kindergarten or first grade.
It’s possible some of the more horrific scenes were edited out for TV… but I don’t think they were…
A Comfortable Kind of Terror
The prevailing emotion I felt while rewatching Poltergeist for possibly the fiftieth time, but perhaps the first time in five years, was how tender it is.
The tone of the movie is set in such a Spielberg vision of kids-on-bikes for the first few minutes that it’s hard not to be swept into the nostalgia and suburban fantasy of being a child during this period. I wonder how the movie would play with people that grew up in larger cities or more recent decades, but for me, even though I wasn’t born until two years after this movie came out, it feels so much like my childhood.
The production design, maybe more than any other aspect of the visual storytelling, really sells this. I was blown away by the sheer number of commercial references in the children’s bedrooms. Robbie’s bed has Star Wars sheets. They have an Alien poster on the wall. Their house is lived in in a way that I hope they teach in school.
While many horror stories rely on their characters not realizing either that they are in a horror movie, or even that horror movies exist, Poltergeist makes it very clear that this family exists in our pop culture. They know our references. They might live next door. They could be us.
Most horror movies work on building tension. They hint, and insinuate, and linger on shots that make the audience nervous. They show us things that will come back much later to gorey, horrific results. The movie Audition is basically 100 minutes of moving pieces around a board and ten final minutes of revealing you’ve actually been holding razor blades this whole time. X, released just last year, uses the audiences knowledge that they’re watching a horror movie to build this tension in a way that honestly may be unparalleled. Seriously: go watch X immediately.
But Poltergeist breaks this rule in an interesting way. It actively discourages the audience from feeling tense before its inciting incident. Oh, there’s some nervousness with creepy Carol-Anne’s iconic “They’re here,” and Robbie’s fear of thunder, but despite living in a world that contains Alien and Darth Vader, the family isn’t scared when their chairs start rearranging themselves or their daughter zips across the linoleum. The family, who have seen media that would inform them when to be scared, is excited. They’re giggling. They put us at ease.
And then a tree breaks through a window and eats their son. The screaming starts. The blood flows. A child goes missing while another goo-smeared kid walks around traumatized and screaming at the ghostly voice of his missing sister. It feels like the movie is getting going.
But it doesn’t.
We cut to some period of time later.
And the family is just living with the monsters in their children’s bedroom. All considered, they’re pretty calm. They invite over investigators. They make do.
After Carol Anne’s abduction, Poltergeist lets you take a breath. It lets you get comfortable with the absurd. The characters poke at their spectral intruders like a sleeping bear, but the monster in the house stirs only slightly with these provocations. We’re lulled into a sense of, if not security, perhaps complacency. Even the drama of entering a transdimensional portal and ripping through reality to save their daughter is underscored by a soaring soundtrack closer to romance than thriller. Zelda Rubinstein cracks jokes as she’s blown backwards by industrial lights and magic.
Family reunited. This house is clean. Calm suburbanites at peace once again. Held breath exhumed.
And then the bear wakes up.
And there’s screaming.
And corpses in the pool.
And we’re running for our lives.
And the sense of security, the sense that, although we were watching something difficult, we at least understood what we were dealing with is stripped away.
I’m sure somewhere in there is a deeper lesson, or a more chilling level of terror about the American dream, but as I said at the beginning: I don’t have a complicated relationship with Poltergeist. This well-crafted bait-and-switch epic is here for my nostalgic entertainment alone.
I’ve Been Twaumatized (Festive Log)
I had plans to make this cake about a month ago. This cake should have premiered the week before Christmas…
And then I got COVID.
And it was not a mild case. I wasn’t hospitalized, so I won’t call it severe, but it is only three weeks after getting sick that I’m able to walk around my block… and this is from someone who regularly walks 10,000 - 15,000 steps in a day.
Can I get a bust of my drawing of Zelda R., please?
This cake should have been hard… and it was not AT ALL.
The idea for this cake came pretty early on. I knew I wanted to make a haunted tree, and with the holidays approaching, the idea of subverting the yule log was just too good to pass up.
A few years ago I made Otto Lenghi’s Lemon and Blackberry Stripe cake, and I figured I could apply the same logic to a yule log if I had enough cake and a sturdy enough frosting.
And I was right.
I was totally right.
Twist!
No Twauma here!
A Stump and a Dream
The first time I read Otto Lenghi’s recipe for his vertical stripe cake, I didn’t quite understand it, but it’s actually incredibly easy!
Basically you make two swiss roll cakes and roll them up end-to-end. If this sounds confusing, take a look at the Youtube video. Imagine instead of two cakes, one very long thin rectangle that was cut in half. With a tub of frosting and a tight cinch, two sheets of cake become one giant log.
It’s seriously that easy. I chilled my log of a swiss roll cake in the freezer for an hour and it was strong enough to stand by itself. By the time I added some ganache to cement it to my cake plate, it was sturdy as an oak.
Seriously.
After the first day I started cutting horizontal slices from the cake and it didn’t even hint at a wobble let alone a topple.
I Ain’t ‘Fraid of No Cracks
While I was rolling my cakes, I was dismayed by the number of cracks that were appearing.
One of my swill rolls actually split fully in half, leaving me with one and two-halfs of cake.
And you know what?
It didn’t matter. I applied my creamy mint buttercream, rolled it all up tight, cinched it with parchment, stuck it in the freezer, and it was perfectly solid.
There are times in baking when you want to throw it all out, but almost every time you push through, it turns out. It may not turn out how we wanted it to look, but it turns out perfectly edible and delightful.
In another shocking twist to this tale, by the time I applied my ganache and chocolate bark to the tree I actually grew to love the cracks! The fissures in the sides of my cake, along with the dusting of cocoa I used on the parchment, gave the tree a creepy, haunted effect which was perfect for Poltergeist.
How old is this tree? About the age I was when I saw Poltergeist for the first time… maybe on TBS.
Video Vixen
With the holidays looming, I was sure I didn’t want to do a video for Poltergeist.
With my COVID diagnosis, I knew I wouldn’t.
And yet….
I really enjoy making the videos, so I threw some flour in my hair (my original plan was to goo myself up like Robbie…) turned on my iPhone and got to work.
And it was easy. So much easier than I always think it’s going to be.
Nope. That’s not right. I know it’s going to be easy. I know I’ll have fun. I know I’ll enjoy having done it. But that doesn’t stop anxiety gnawing at me.
In addition to feeling more comfortable in my own weirdness, these videos are also helping me examine an odd anxiety I’ve had since my mid-twenties. I don’t exactly know what to call it, so let’s call it a “fear of calling a restaurant for reservations,” or “a fear of checking your email after two days of being offline.” It’s an odd kind of crippling anxiety. I am sometimes literally made immobile by the anxiety of stepping into an unknown situation… but usually only if the stakes of the situation are completely benign.
It’s an anxiety that makes me put off things that are relatively simple, or easy, or even enjoyable. Things like returning a text message I forgot to respond to three days ago.
It’s a little voice that says “just don’t do it and you can fade away…. just wait for someone else to do it for you… if you wait a little longer maybe it will start on fire and then you can put it out.”
To clarify: I have NO anxiety about getting on stage. I have NO anxiety about cold calling people. I have absolutely not a whiff of fear interviewing, meeting new people, or traveling to foreign countries (okay, just a tiny tiny whiff of anxiety there that I easily shove down).
But simple things? Even things I know will do me good, make people around me happy, or even just make me happy? Anxiety and negative self talk you wouldn’t believe.
Preparing for the videos feel like that sometimes. I think they’re funny. I love editing them. I even feel totally comfortable talking to myself while I bake and putting myself up on the internet in a public way that should be embarassing.
But… getting the camera out? Pysching myself up to do the thing I know I enjoy? Reaching for the record button for the first time? I can rationalize why I don’t need or really want to do it for days. I hear myself in conversation where I convince other people to tell me it’s okay not to do it.
And then something snaps and I do it. I call for a reservation. I answer the text. I put flour in my hair and make Lucille Ball faces at the camera. And I laugh at myself and feel lighter.
So why are you there, Anxiety? Why don’t you go away?
Maybe I’ll be closer to the answer in another eighteen weeks…
Recipes and Sources
I had great success with this cake using a chocolate spring roll recipe and a mint buttercream, but you could easily use whatever flavor and frosting combination you’d prefer.
I’VE BEEN TWAUMATIZED (FESTIVE LOG) RECIPE
Take your favorite Swiss Roll cake recipe (or jelly roll) and double it to make two sheet pans of cake. My recipe was for 13”x18” pans, but any jelly foll pan would work, too. You may just have a slightly thicker or shorter haunted tree!
While the cakes bake, lay out two sheets of parchment paper and dust with cocoa (chocolate cake) or powdered sugar (white cake). This will help your warm cake from sticking to the parchment when you roll it.
Also while the cakes are baking (if you have time…) melt some chocolate either over a double boiler or in the microwave.
I used approximately 6 oz. of 60% dark chocolate because I didn’t want my tree completely covered. If you prefer your tree totally covered in bark, I’d suggest melting at least 10 oz. of chocolate.
Spread this melted chocolate thinly over two pieces of parchment (you may only need one or up to three depending on how much bark you’re making) and roll it loosely up, making sure the chocolate does not touch itself. Place this in the refridgerator to set (until step 20!).
When the cakes are done, let them sit in their pans for only about a minute before turning them out onto your prepared, dusted parchment.
Loosely roll the cakes up, making sure the cake is not touching itself (hence the parchment), and set these aside to cool to room temperature.
Make buttercream.
I used Zoë Bake’s Creamy Buttercream recipe from Zoë Bakes Cakes and added 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract. This recipe is basically American buttercream with eight egg yolks. Beat the sugar and yolks together over a double-boiler until they reach 140 degrees, whip this mixture until it come to room temperature, and then add your butter 2TBSP at a time. It’s super easy and a HUGE upgrade to American Buttercream.
You can use any buttercream you’d like, but it needs to be on the sturdier side to hold up your cake.
Unroll one of the cakes, spread half your frosting over the cake, and roll it back up TIGHTLY.
Roll out your second cake and spread the remaining frosting over it.
From the end of your first rolled cake, roll the second cake over it TIGHTLY, as if it was a continuation of the first. Essentially you’re pretending like your two rectangles of cake were one long continues piece. You should be left with one super thick log with no air holes or gaps.
Tuck your parchment paper around this log tightly. You could also use plastic wrap, but we’ve got all this parchment laying around.
Freeze the log for an hour, to firm the buttercream.
While the log is chilling, make a chocolate ganache and set it aside to cool. Depending on the heat in your kitchen, you may want to put this in the refridgerator as it needs to be a spreadable, not pourable, consistency by the time you’re ready to assemble the cake.
Once the cake is firm, unwrap it and trim one edge so it can stand straight. Leave the other edge rough to add to your haunted trees dishevelment.
Carve a mouth into the side of you cake using a serrated knife.
As with all carving: BE AGGRESSIVE! Once you add ganache and chocolate curls, the mouth will be obscured. You always want to carve a little more than you think you should.
Spread a layer of ganache on a cake plate or board. The ganache should be at least as wide as the log.
Place the log on the layer of ganache. It may be a little slick, but if your log is flat, it will quickly set since your cake is cold and chocolate likes to stiffen when put in contact with anything below room temperature.
Take dollops of ganache and spread them around the base of your log, drawing them up the trunk and in thin streams onto the plate to look like roots.
Take the remaining ganache and spread it around the tree in places you’re planning to affix “bark.”
Remove your chilled chocolate rolls from the refridgerator and unroll them. Your chocolate will break into many jagged pieces with a slight curve to them.
Place these chocolate curls around the tree, reserving the sharpest, most jagged edges for the mouth and top of the log. For extra texture, turn some of the curves towards the log and others away.
Let this cake set in the refridgerator for another fifteen minutes. This will really secure the ganache and bark to the log.
Make adorable little T-Rex arms out of modeling chocolate or whatever malleable material you have handy.
Get your eyes ready. I made gelatin eyes and tinted them poison green.
Bring out the cake, affix your eyes, place your arms.
Giggle uncontrollably.
My first slices into the cake were wedges, but I found it better to slice the cake horizontally, like you’re in the lumberjack games. You’ll crack some of the chocolate bark off, but this tree tried to eat your son! ARE YOU GOING TO LET IT LIVE?!
Devour.
Check on your other kids.
Wait…
Where’s Carol Anne!
CAROL ANNE?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Oh, GOD! NO!
Thanks for your eyes! Follow and share on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube! I put out a video and post every week (ish), and subscribing is the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the absurdity.
Join me next week for what Stephen King has called one of his worst adapations (he’s wrong… “worst” is an impossibily high bar for his adaptations. Has he seen Thinner?): Firestarter (1984)
Drew Barrymore’s second appearance on Terrific Cakes!
