Terrific Cakes: Return to Oz - Head 22’s Pumpkin Curry Cake
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A Dream of a Movie
It’s here.
Finally.
Return to Oz.
I talk about Return to Oz a lot, which is both surprising and not at all surprising to anyone that knows me. It’s a movie that was incredibly influential to me as a child and a film I still appreciate and love as an adult. It’s a movie that exemplifies a lot of the lessons from IT without all of its depths of fear. It’s a shocking sequel because it takes all of the rainbow fantasia of The Wizard of Oz and throws it away for a movie steeped in the depressive greys and eeriness of Dorothy’s Kansas.
If you’ve never seen Return to Oz, I’m not sure if I recommend for you to watch it now. I just rewatched it for what must be over the 100th time, and I think it’s a haunting and beautiful achievement of design and atmosphere… but I also legitimately believe Grease 2 to be superior to Grease, so take that opinion with a grain of salt. I love it because it resonated with me as a child, but do I think it’s a great movie? Well, I do, but I’m also not objective.
I’m prepared for Return to Oz to be lumped into the “you had to be there” category of film appreciation. In this example “you” was people born between 1978 - 1989 and “there” was sitting in front of TV unsupervised by your parents as these horrors played out before you.
Return to Oz is one of those pieces of culture that is polarizing because of its outsized impact on a microgeneration. It’s a film that, if you didn’t grow up with it, you may still have no idea what I’m talking about. You probably didn’t even know this film existed before clicking on this link. Alternatively, if you were one of the kids that was “there” when this was being shown to children, I wouldn’t be surprised if seeing the words Return to Oz made you scream. In recognition. In remembrances of fear. In the joy and shock that this movie actually does exist and it wasn’t just the product of your nightmares.
Yes, those are living disembodied heads giving Fairuza Balk’s Dorothy the stink eye.
Oz Kids Vs. the World
I was an “Oz” kid.
I was also a “Boxcar” kid and a “Goosebumps” kid and a “Redwall” kid and a “Wrinkle in Time” kid and generally just a kid that maxed out their summer library reading competition every year. I was not a “Fear Street” or a “Roald Dahl” or a “Babysitter’s Club” and most assuredly I was not a “Narnia” kid (quick aside: I read all the Narnia books last year, and I’d really recommend you to read the first four to the children in your life and then STOP! DO NOT GO PAST THE FOURTH BOOK. You’ve been warned. We’re talking a shot-for-shot recreation of Revelations as Narnia burns and Aslan-Jesus judges its souls to descend to hell or ascend to heaven. This is after your favorite characters are all killed in a train crash, except for Susan, who was spared heaven because she was too obsessed with “nylons and lipsticks and invitations.”)
It’s hard to remember how many Oz books I read, but from my best recollection I read at least through the 11th book (The Lost Princess of Oz), but knowing what a little book monster I was (am), I assume I would have gone through the original fourteen. I at least went through as many as my local library had. I probably began reading these books when I was six or seven, as I was a very braggadocious child about being able to read chapter books in first grade. This would surprised no one whose ever met me.
I remember barely anything from the books, except their absurdity and fantasy. I reread the first three books after this rewatching of Return to Oz, and I’m here to tell you: this movie gets Oz way more than the original movie.
The Oz books aren’t exactly dark. In fact, the land of Oz is described constantly as almost painfully saturated with color, but the overwhelming tone of the books is one of magical realism and a casual approach to imminent death.
Dismemberment? Got it!
Necromancy? You bet!
Torture? And how!
Despite all of these nightmare hallmarks, though, Dorothy (or whichever protagonist we’re currently following through Oz) handles them all with a calm appreciation. Giant statue blocking the path about to crush us into pulp? Well let’s just watch it a moment and calmly jump under its murderous hammer! Witch locking me in a tower until my head ripens so she can harvest it for her own use? Better just chill in this tower until help comes along, which I’m sure it will… and it does!
Oz almost feels like a playground of rubber spikes and foam boulders. It feels a bit like Dorothy’s running through Legends of the Hidden Temple. In the books, the dangers are often a problem of perspective, conquerable by walking around them to see them from a different, less frightening angle. Its villains are often selfish, but not malicious. They care only about themselves, but can be easily conquered by a hard-working farmgirl with no time for their egos.
THAT COSTUME DESIGN!
That’s Nice… but What the Hell is This, Then?!
Return to Oz, interestingly enough, actually sharpens the rounded edges of Dorothy’s Oz and creates more cruel villains in a more deadly world; the grey of Baum’s books becomes black-and-white in Return to Oz.
Let’s look at Mombi as an example, although for all intents, Princess Mombi in Return to Oz is actually based on Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz. Mombi was a character in The Marvelous Land of Oz, but basically the only thing the movie takes from her is that her name is Mombi, she’s enchanted Ozma, and she has a powder that brings things to life.
In the book Ozma of Oz, Princess Langwidere is the vain surrogate ruler of the land of Ev. She’s portrayed as incredibly vain and lazy. Yes, she kidnaps Dorothy for her head, but mostly because she’s bored. When Dorothy is freed, Langwidere volunteers the entire scheme of the Nome King and asks Dorothy’s band of heroes to stop him so she can have more time to look at herself in her hall of mirrors. She’s my new role model.
In the movie, Mombi is a VILLAIN. We’re talking Ursula before she was Divine. We’re first introduced to Jean Marsh’s villainess as the spectacularly pointy Nurse Wilson as she straps down Dorothy for her electroshock at an asylum for criminally-imaginative girls. Return to Oz plays a shell game on its viewers by introducing Jean Marsh’s voice, but not her head, when Dorothy finally arrives at the decimated palace of the Emerald City. It’s an incredible bit of deception as we watch this terrifyingly costumed princess pull Dorothy through her hall of heads and we hear a voice that is familiar but not recognizable. When Mombi, wearing her original head (Jean Marsh) bursts through the doors to stop Dorothy’s escape, the recognition that her captor was the same woman who restrained her at the beginning of the movie is nothing short of genius storytelling. Mombi chases Dorothy across the Deadly Desert, screaming and whipping her Wheelers, eager to stop our little girl from Kansas. Mombi ends in cages in both worlds, no vain redemption for her like our Princess Langwidere.
It could be argued that Langwidere has no motivation, so would not have made a very interesting antagonist. I think her main motivation is “I’m bored with this head, give me yours,” but as a child, the grey villains are so interesting: they teach you to reason your way out of danger. As much as I am #teammombi because of her incredible costumes and general Marshness, I wonder how much of my perception of narrative was informed by the sharpening of these edges in stories I heard as a child.
Children LIke a Complex Narrative, TOO
Like the golden age of horror we’re currently in (see my post about It Follows for more thoughts on this), children’s shows have, at least partially, themselves been in a bit of a golden age.
Let’s look at She-ra as an example.
I was gifted the bane of extreme body dysmorphia throughout my childhood thanks to the INSANE bodies of Masters of the Universe, which included She-ra. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this skeleton with eighteen inch arms and abs. These cartoons are almost unwatchable now. They are essentially action figures in banal good vs. bad scenarios. There’s little nuance. There’s pretty much no character. No matter what Krang throws at them, there’s no doubt our muscle bound turtles will save the day.
When I heard they were rebooting Shera, I was skeptical. If Heman was a grab at action figure sales, Shera was an even lazier pawing at the “girl” market.
Little did I know.
She-ra and the Princesses of Power is beautifully animated, complex, full of heart, diverse in every sense of the word, and compelling almost beyond description. Characters come together and grow apart. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends. LGBTQ+ characters are integrated without hesitation and the series lets its characters make mistakes while finding themselves. I wholeheartedly recommend you to watch it. (Special shout out to keeping the original characters, including lesbian hammer-thrower Netossa, whose power is to toss nets… read that name again and you’ll see the laziness that original flavor She-ra was).
I like to think Return to Oz was made by the same kind of people that made Shera and the Princesses of Power. Although Return to Oz sharpens the corners of its villains, it is never scared to frighten its audience or to show Dorothy’s peril. It doesn’t erase the gruesome origins of Oz, as evidenced by Fairuza Balk’s Dorothy explaining the Tin Woodsman’s origin story to her therapist (basically he cut off all his flesh with an enchanted axe and replaced his meat with tin until he was only metal).
There are moments in the movie where it really feels like Dorothy might lose, or at least lose a limb. There are sounds and sights that set my heart racing as if I just heard a rattlesnake. I look at Dorothy and feel a chill in the air and a sadness in her voice. She starts the film as a traumatized child desperate for someone to believe her, only to find herself transported to a deeper level of her personal hell: witness to the desolation of the land she thought she’d saved. It’s a wild ride, but ultimately one that leaves children of all ages stronger.
This movie would never be made now, but I say that because I think a better version of this story would be adapted. Still scary. Still tiptoeing into body horror. Still triumphant. Hopefully with more complex villains. A better exploration of emotional damage and trauma response.
And a bit higher body (parts) count. This is Oz, after all.
Pumpkin-Headed
I kind of hated Jack Pumpkinhead when I was growing up. Somewhere between his whining voice and general clumsiness, he just seemed more trouble than he was worth.
I knew I wanted to make a geode-style cake (just 3-4 years after they were trendy), but beyond that I wasn’t sure how to capture this emerald city nightmare.
Jack delivered the answer when he said that Mombi originally wanted to make him into a pie, but that was when she wearing Head 22. He explained that we was likely still alive because Head 22 hadn’t been worn in a while. It’s a nice little throwaway joke, but… that’s almost always what I latch onto for my inspiration.
So pumpkin would be king, but how to add the green?
I’ve had a Makrut Lime tree for a few years and it produces an abundance of incredibly aromatic and delicious leaves. I’ve used these as the basis for buttercream before, but really cranked them up this time to great effect.
To lean into the “green” of this cake I thought to add green curry paste to the pumpkin, infusing it with the flavors of green chili and lemongrass (also garlic and onions… which… we’ll get to it…).
Overall the experiment was successful, although some odd things happened to the flavors over the four days we ate from it…
Largely… achieved?
Other flavor ideas that could have been…
Pumpkin+
Green Curry Paste
Let’s get the first thing out of the way: if you taste garlic or onion strongly, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT add the green curry paste to your pumpkin cake. Just make the pumpkin cake without the curry paste and make the accompanying Coconut Pastry Cream and Makrut Lime Ermine Frosting. You will have a delicious, fragrant, hearty cake with complimentary and complex flavors.
If you are up for it, you can add the Green Curry Paste (I used Thai Kitchen), but be warned that something odd happens over the course of several days…
Often with cakes, flavors harmonize and become more delicious after the first 24 hours of assembly. A lot of cakes really taste better the second day.
This cake… did not. It didn’t taste bad, but with each passing day the sweetness of the cake receded and I could taste the garlic in the curry paste more and more. You should know that my husband did not agree with this, so maybe it was psychological, but by the fourth day of eating this cake, the garlic felt really dominant to me.
That all being said, the first day I had this cake I thought it was PERFECTION, so… basically this is a cake you should eat in one sitting.
Doctor’s orders.
Ten Thai Chilis
Another experiment gone awry was how many chilis to include in the coconut pastry cream in this cake. I blended ten Thai chilis (also called Bird’s Eye chilis) into the cream and it was FAR too many. Well… it was too many.
Like the garlic, the oil from the Thai chilis blossomed over the four days we ate this cake, so it only became spicier.
If you like spice, I would do 3-4 Thai chilis, knowing that the heat is going to deepen. If you don’t like spicy, feel free to leave these out entirely.
Similar to the garlic, I probably had 6-7 people eat this cake and the opinion was generally that it was a little too hot, but it did not ruin the cake. The coconut flavor is very dominant amidst the flames.
Geodes
I’ve never made a geode cake before, but I knew I wanted some emerald elements in this cake. The actual process of finding rock candy was actually the hardest part of the exercise, and I ultimately had to go to an old candy counter in a diner to find some (I tried to get them on Amazon but my purchase from three weeks ago still hasn’t shipped…).
I think the geode elements would have benefitted from being even more prevalent on the cake. I had an idea at one point of making a fully encrusted Judith Lieber-style pumpkin cake, but having recently discovered it takes 4 bags of jellybeans to cover a cake, I just didn’t want to eat that much rock candy.
I opted to carve out some eyes for my geodes, which… lacked some of the whimsy I usually like in my eyes. I think if I were to redo it I’d make muppet eyes and a terrifying, jagged smile full of different shades of green gems.
Spinach Dye
I experimented with making green dye from spinach leaves for this cake because I have a pretty strong taste bud for chemicals. Generally, I know our world is full of carcinogens so it feels silly to worry about food dye when I drink tap water teeming with microplastics, BUT my stupid genetics make chemicals taste like dry bitter ink. It doesn’t happen with all colors, but if something has black or dark green dye in it, my body triggers its stupid defense mechanism and tells me I’m eating poison. Unhelpful!
The spinach dye definitely worked to achieve a pale, organic green color, but for deeper colors, I think synthetic is almost the way you have to go. I’ll definitely use the spinach dye again in the future, and, to be honest, the pumpkin looks great in person. The colors didn’t translate in photographs nearly as well for some reason.
Video Vixen
This is an interesting cake to talk about because in person, this was quite adorable. The frosting is a soft shade of green with speckles of lime leaves. The emeralds are deep green and sparkle in the light. The cake is wonderfully fragrant and the pumpkin flavor hits your nose before it hits your tongue.
But UFF does this cake photograph terribly!
Something about the lighting or the Iphone’s color correcting pulled out all the crumbs of pumpkin cake that got caught in the frosting when I was doing its face and made it look sloppy and grotesque. You’ll have to trust me that this cake fills a room with its scent and adorableness… that doesn’t translate to camera at all.
I’m having a lot more fun with these videos and I hope it translates. I’m poking fun at myself, being a little more irreverent with added elements, and letting the videos run a little longer. The demoralizing algorithms of social media, including YouTube, let me know just how well they’re not doing, but when I get such a giggle out of them, it’s kind of hard to care.
I remind myself that personal exploration, creative practice, and joy and what this whole experiment is about…
But I’d be lying I said each new follower, like, or comment didn’t mean the world to me.
Recipe CARDS
(Right click to save the images and print them out!)
This movie is the definition of a triple-A-B-minus movie.
