The cake itself was easy to make - not much to it, but the figures were a PITB. I'm not very good at making figures so I used some Youtube videos for instructions.
For the lion I used a combination of two videos. I liked the head from Happy Little Baker's tutorial but the body from Zoe's Fancy Cakes.
For the giraffe I again used a combination of two videos. Again the head came from Happy Little Baker and the body came from Lets Clay with EWA.
The monkey (which is my favorite) was all Zoe's, and the coconut tree was from Francesca's SugarArt.
The zebra instruction came from Just Cake It, although I again used the face from Happy Little Baker. In Just Cake It's video she painted the stripes onto the zebra's body, but I didn't have any luck with that method. The painted stripes came out a little messy looking and the color ended up looking more more purple than black. I didn't like my painted zerbra at all (he was also too big), so I tossed him and made a second zebra this time just using very thin pieces of black fondant to make the stripes.
And after all that work creating my safari animals this is how they ended up. I always struggle with what to do with the figures and flowers after taking them off the cake. Poor little guys; they look so sad.
I also made a bunch of other treats for the party. I tried Chocolate Dipped Oreos for the first time, and I also make some brownie Cakesicles.
And cookies, I made lots of cookies. The monkey and the bear were my favorites. The zebra came out a little mean looking, and the elephant just looked strange. The tiger looked more like a house cat, and the lion looked like he just had a perm. Cookies are hard to make - much harder than cakes.
Happy Decorating,
Carol
