LSU Tiger Groom's Cake

Hello all you LSU fans!!  Go Tigers!

This is an LSU Tiger cake I made for a friend's wedding.  The groom (and the bride) were recent graduates from LSU.  Him as a doctor and her as a nurse.

For the cake I started with a black and white tiger image and colored in sections with a yellow marker to make it match the gold markings on "Mike the Tiger".   

Then I carefully cut out all the shapes.  I envisioned this cake coming together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

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Once I had the paper pieces, I placed them on top of my fondant and started to cut.  I began with the largest pieces of white and gold fondant (Wilton's Buttercup yellow with a touch of Brown) and then moved onto the smaller pieces.  Here is an ear being cut.  I put the white inner ear inside the gold before I tried to move it to the cake.  More stable that way.

Then I placed them on top of my cake.  See how it all fits together like puzzle pieces. 

And I kind of miss calculated the size of the image I needed.   Duh.   See how the tips of the ears and the chin hairs protrude off the edge of the cake?  That wasn't my plan! I wanted the tiger's face to fit completed inside the cake, but I printed my image too big.  By the time I realized my mistake I had already cut out all the pieces from the paper pattern.  Oops.  Instead of re-cutting everything, I just let the ears hang off top.  I did have to prop them up with little pieces of cardboard to keep them from drooping.

After the base layers of white and gold where in place, I started with the purple stripes.  I use Mona Lisa fondant for my cakes, but Mona Lisa doesn't work well with dyes that are tinted purple (something to do with the pH and the red dyes).  I tried tinting my Mona Lisa with some Americolor Electric Purple, but it just looked like lavender mud.  So I used some pre-colored Sweetshop fondant I picked up a Michael's.  It was an exact match for LSU purple.

Placing all the purple stripes wasn't difficult, but it was a little time consuming.  And some of the stripes were too hard to cut, or too small, or just wouldn't fit correctly, so I rearranged the stripes as needed.  

Next came the LSU letters on the side of the cake.  It was super easy to cut using a Razor Slicer.  This long slicer is an amazingly versatile tool.  I use it on every cake.  It is great for trimming the excess fondant from my big cake drums.

Final step was putting a border around the base of the cake.  I used my ACE Food Safe Extruder to pump out some perfectly sized gold and purple fondant ribbon.

I also used the extruder to pump out some "tube" shaped rope that I used for the stethoscope. I used black Fondarific fondant for this.  And see the little heart I put in the stethoscope?  It was actually an accident.  I was trying to curl the stethoscope around the board and it just landed that way.  When I realized it looked like a heart I like I just left it that way.

For the silver sections of the stethoscope I made them with gray colored gumpaste that I painted with edible silver luster dust.

So the bride and groom where happy with their cake.  Congrats Brittney and Will.


Happy Decorating,

Carol



Supply List: 

Mona Lisa Fondant
Black Fondarific Fondant
Satin Ice Gumpaste
14" Cake Drum
Electric Purple Gel Color
Wilton's Buttercup Yellow Gel Color
ACE Food Safe Extruder
Cake Boss Decorating Tools
Razor Slicer