By Cate Lecuyer
BEVERLY — Every year, Endicott College pastry chef Ed Charest creates a life-size coffin cake for Halloween.
At 6 feet long and 31รขÑ2 feet wide, it's hollowed out to make room for a Count Dracula dummy and large enough to serve about 600 students. The students cut into the masterpiece during dinner last night in the cafeteria.
"I can't wait," said sophomore Amanda Echteler, who helped Charest in the kitchen. "I've been dying while we were making it."
The coffin cake has become a tradition at the school since Charest became the pastry chef four years ago. He brought the idea from Babson College, where he worked for 13 years. Usually, he makes it in a room by himself. This year, he let students help, and they put the whole thing together in the cafeteria so people could see it in progress.
"This year, I wanted to do something more to interact with the students," said Charest, a School Committee member in Peabody.
It fits his personality.
"We're always friendly with Ed," said sophomore Ashley Kenahan, who helped with the cake. "He comes over to our table at lunch, asks us what we want for dessert."
Charest specializes in custom orders. Students can make official requests at his dessert wagon, or simply mention they're in the mood for chocolate oatmeal cookies and they'll show up on the menu in the next couple of days.
For many students, college is their home away from home, so if they're in the mood for a special snack, Charest doesn't hesitate to satisfy the craving.
"I treat them like my own kid," he said. "I like to find out what their favorites are."
There's enough in the coffin cake, however, to satisfy a couple of cravings at once.
It's a chocolate and yellow cake with vanilla butter cream icing and a layer of chocolate ganache on top. The spider webs are made from a white chocolate ganache, and it's decorated with plastic spiders, gummy worms and a gallon of Oreo cookie crumbs.
Not surprisingly, Charest has perfected the cake over the years.
"I'm very meticulous," he said. And he was pleasantly surprised by the students' attention to detail. Kenahan, Echteler and sophomore Briana Barron spread much of the frosting, created the spider webs and arranged the worms.
"I've worked with many decorators," he said. "And they blew them away."
Staff writer Cate Lecuyer can be reached at clecuyer@salem news.com.
By the numbers
120: pounds of cake
8: sheet cakes, layered on top of each other
12: pounds of chocolate ganache
35: pounds of butter cream frosting
1: gallon of Oreo cookie crumbs
4: hours it took to create
600: people it can feed
