Baby Dinosaur Cake

My first request for a baby dinosaur cake.  How does it look?  I'm not a very good 3D sculptor, but I hope the topper doesn't look too weird. 

And here is the smash cake...

I made the orange dinosaur topper ahead of time.  I didn't want to use too much fondant so I started with an aluminum foil armature.  On the face I built up the nose and cheek section with fondant, and then I covered the entire head with one flat piece of fondant.  (Note: I mixed the fondant with some Tylose powder to make the fondant stiffer.)

I tried several ways of covering the body, but finally I made a hollow funnel shape and slipped the aluminum foil body inside.  The pointy end becoming the tail.

The body ended up looking like a big orange tadpole, but I hoped/prayed it would look more like a body when I attached the head and legs.

And it did look much better once I attached the other parts.

And here it is with the eyes and spines along his back.  Not too bad but I wish I made his jaw and chin a little bigger.

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I also made the palm trees ahead of time to give them time to dry.  I made the cutters myself using my trusty Creality Ender 3 Version 3 3D printer.  I have an blog post about using a 3D printer HERE.

And here are the palms after I dusted them with brown and green powder food color.  The shading of color gives them a little more life.

In addition to the palm tree cutter I also made a bunch of others cutters for this cake: the dinosaurs, the letters, the sun, the big number "1" with the spines along the side.  The 3D Printer has become my favorite cake decorating tool. 

Another handy tool is this set of tiny circle cutters.  They make perfect little circles for eyes, eyebrows, mouths, etc.  I use them on almost every cake.

The cake itself is frosted in American Buttercream, and I did an Ombre effect from green to dark sky blue to light sky blue.   I use acrylic disks to get the straight sides, flat top, and sharp edges.  The disks make the task so much easier, and they are really worth the investment.  I got mine from Cake Safe, and I have a blog post about how to use them HERE.  FYI:  On most cakes I use the size that is 1/4" larger than my cake.  For the 8" cake I used the 8-1/4" acrylic disks, and for the 6" cake I used the 6-1/4" disk.

While the cake was chilling, I decorated the 12" white foil cake drum.  I had some burgundy Satin Ice fondant left over from another cake, so I added some brown food color to it and made a nice reddish-brown color.  While the fondant was still fresh, I pressed a piece of Styrofoam into to give it a nice texture. 

Next I stacked my cakes and started to add the details.   The palm tree, and a mountain went on first.  For the mountain I use a Soft Stone food coloring gel.   I don't know why, but the Soft Stone color works so much better then adding black food gel to white fondant.

And after that it was just a matter of cutting out the dinosaur shapes using my cutters and slapping them on the cake.  For the clouds I used these cutters.  I bought them before I got my 3D printer.  Now I would just make my own. LOL.  Here are the sides of the cake showing the other dinosaurs I made.

For the green Pterodactyl hovering above the cake, I glued an 8" long 3mm wide transparent acrylic rod to the back of the body and stuck the rod into the cake.  You can see the rod, but it is not too obvious.

So another finished cake, and a few more lessons learned.  Cake decorating is certainly an adventure.

Happy Decorating,

Carol