RECIPES FROM THE RETRO HOUSEWIFE

DESSERT

BIG TOP CIRCUS CAKE, American

Lions and Elephants Arrive On a Big Top Circle Cake

Lions and elephants, cotton candy and clowns - the circus has come to town! And nothing tickles the imagination of children more than an old-fashioned circus with all the trimmings.

Big Top Circus Cake from Betty Crocker is a delightful child's birthday and party cake that Mom can make right at home with three package mixes, a box of animal crackers, paper, a peppermint stick and paper straws. This recipe and more than 300 others can be found in a unique new cookbook where every recipe starts with a mix. So, make the next party for your children a really festival one by treating the gang to a Big Top Circus Cake. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 Package chocolate fudge frosting mix
• 1 Package creamy white frosting mix
• Animal Crackers
• Food Coloring
• Straws
• Peppermint Stick
• Paper

Preparation Instructions

Bake devil's food cake mix in two round layer pans, 8- or 9x1 ½ inches, as directed on package. Cool.

Prepare 1 package chocolate fudge and 1 package creamy white frosting mix as directed on packages. Fill and frost cake with chocolate frosting.

Divide white frosting into 4 parts; tint one part red, one yellow, one green and- one blue. Use animal crackers for the animals, straws for uprights of canopy and a peppermint candy stick, if desired, in center of the cake. Animals may be arranged inside on "stands" made from dabs of yellow frosting pressed through decorating cone with star tip. Make a ring around top of cake with same tip and frosting.

Make canopy by scalloping edge of an 11-inch circle of peppermint striped paper. Cut between 2 scallops to center and overlap to make cupped canopy. Fasten with transparent tape or paper clips. Rest canopy on top of straw "poles."

Decorate side of cake with other animal crackers. Make different colored cages, using writing tip and star tip and the remaining tinted frosting.

Contributed by Betty Crocker, 1966

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I would like to thank Newspaperarchive for putting together such a fabulous service, and placing our Nation's history right at our fingertips. Many of these wonderful recipes are ones I stumbled upon quite by accident while sleuthing through the decades in my quest to assemble the world of the American housewife. RH