Elephant Themed Baby Shower Cake

My latest endeavor was a baby shower cake for a friend of my niece.  There was no real theme for the party, but I was told that the mom-to-be loved baby elephants and the baby was a girl.  I found a precious cake on Pinterest that included baby elephants holding up a cloths line, and I decided to use that as my inspiration.

And surprise, surprise, when I arrived at the party I found that all the plates, napkins, and cups were decorated with cloths lines and baby cloths.  And even better, the walls and cake table were decorated with swags of baby cloths hanging from lines.  How cool is that!  Just by coincidence the cake exactly matched the decorations.  Except for the elephants.  Only the cake had the elephants that the mom-to-be was so in love with.

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This was a pretty easy cake to put together because I was able to make a lot of it ahead of time.  I started with the elephants.  I wanted them to be a keepsake so I made them out of polymer clay instead of gumpaste.  I have a bunch of different polymer clays hanging around my craft room, but I picked the Sculpey III because it is so soft and easy to use.  It actually looks and feels a lot like fondant.

Anyway I rolled out some sparkly gray clay and used a pattern to cut out the body of the elephant.

I cut out the ears and attached them to the body.  Then I cut out the legs from clay that was about 3 times as thick as the body.  I wanted the legs to be extra plump looking so the elephant would appear more three dimensional.

I added some very thin pink to the ear and cheek, and added tiny balls of pink clay for the toes.  I used a slightly darker pink for the bow.  I also propped the big ear on some parchment paper for baking.  I wanted the ear to look like it was flopping around.

After baking the elephant for 30 minutes the clay was nice and hard.  I pushed the base of the elephant into some green clay to make a stand.  I added some flowers to the stand so it wouldn't look so plain.

I also made some hearts out of red clay and glued them to the elephant using a clear toothpick.  I wanted the heart to "float" above the elephant's trunk so that is why I didn't just stick the heart directly onto the trunk.

After baking the green stand, I glued the finished elephant to the finished base.

And here are the completed elephants.  When I placed them on the cake I put a blob of white fondant between the non-food safe polymer clay and the cake.  In addition to forming a barrier, the fondant also held the elephants in place.

So onto the cake...  I used a 10" x 5" cake for the bottom tier, and a 7" x 4-1/2" cake for the top.  I stacked the cakes and put a pink ribbon of fondant around the base of each tier.  I used my Wilton Strip Cutter to cut the ribbons.  I also used a Wilton Fabric Embosser to try and make the fondant ribbon look more fabric-like, but the pattern didn't show up very well on the pale pink fondant. I also used the same embosser on the fondant covering the cake board.  Again, the pattern wasn't very noticeable, but it was enough to camouflaged the imperfection in the fondant.

Next I used my ACE Food Safe Extruder to make the cloths line.  I twisted one end of the cloths line around the trunk of the elephant and then attached the other end of the line to the cake using some vodka.  I use the vodka instead of water because the vodka evaporates quickly and doesn't make the fondant gummy.

Next I started placing the fondant "clothing" on the cloths line.  The cloths were super easy to make using a silicone mold.  Just dust the mold with cornstarch, press the fondant into the mold, and then peel the mold away.  Worked great.

Here are some of the fondant "cloths" waiting to be placed on the cake.  I made them ahead of time and covered them with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out.

After I was finished with the cake I though it look a little plain, so I stuck a pink fondant ribbon on each tier.  I used the same width fondant for the bow and the ribbon, but I think the bow looks a little small.  In hindsight I should have used a wider piece of fondant for the bow.

For the heart topper I used my Cricut Cutter to cut a heart from pink glitter poster board.  I cut the letters from a gray card stock, and then I glued them together using a glue dot runner.  Easy Peasy.   I glued a bamboo skewer to the back of the heart, stuck the heart in the cake, and called it done.  I hope the mom-to-be likes it.

Happy Decorating,

Carol


Supply List: 
Sculpey III Clay
Sculpey Super Slicer Razor Blade
Mona Lisa Fondant
ACE Food Safe Extruder
Wilton Strip Cutter
Wilton Fabric Embosser
14" Cake Drum
Cricut Cutter
Glue dot runner