Safari / Wild One Cake

This was a super easy Safari / Wild One Cake that is easy to make because I used plastic toys instead of spending hours and hours trying to make them out of fondant.  

The cake is a 9" chocolate on the bottom and a 6" almond on the top.  I also offset the top 6" cake to the back rather than centering it on top of the 9" so I would have lots of room to place the zebra.  The brownish/orange of the buttercream color wasn't the shade I was going for, but it is what I ended up with.  I started with pure white buttercream and added Wilton's Ivory, and Hobby Lobby's Warm Brown, and Chocolate brown to the buttercream and this is the shade I ended up with.  Originally I tried using just Wilton Brown, but that came out with a brownish-green tint that reminded me of baby poo. (Yuck!)  

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Here is a link to the plastic animals I used.  The leaves where cut from fondant using tropical leaf cutters.  I used the green Wilton fondant as the base color, separated it into three balls, and then added Avocado to one ball, Moss Green to another, and Kelly Green gel food color to the final ball.  I made three distinct colors and because they all had the green Wilton fondant as the base, the shades blended nicely together.  I also added Tylose/Gum Tex powder to the fondant so it dried hard.   The cake sits on a 12" black grease-proof cake drum, and I use extra-wide bobba straws to support the top tier.   And for a final touch, I scattered little "rocks" which are actually Amber Sugar that you use in hot tea.  

See, nothing to it!

Happy Decorating,

Carol