I've been making cakes for my cousin Leland since he was just a baby bump. This is cake #7 for Leland, and this year the theme was TMNT.
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This is a two-tiered cake made from an 8" and a 5" round cake. Each tier is 3 layers of cake and stand between 5" and 5-1/2 " tall. For this cake the first things I made were the turtle heads and the sewer tubes and cover. To make the turtle heads I used this YouTube tutorial by The Lovely Baker. Here are the heads drying on the top of an egg crate. I dry them sitting on a depression in the egg crate so the back of the head doesn't flatten.
To make the TMNT sewer cover I mixed Satin Ice Silver Shimmer fondant with some Tylos Powder/CMC/Gum-Tex (all names for the same stuff). The Tylose Powder makes the fondant harden to a rock-like consistency. I rolled the conditioned fondant out flat and then pressed a textured mat into the fondant. This mat came in a set of knitted/fabric weave silicon mats.
I cut out circle shapes from the fondant.And then I cut some strips of silver fondant using the JEM #2 Strip cutter. (These things come in so handy). I positioned the strips around the outside edge of the circle securing them with a dab of water. I also used a tiny circle tool to make the circular marks.
As a final touch I dusted with some black petal dust to give it an old, dirty look.
For the TMNT letters, I used my 3D printer to make fondant cutters. You can just cut these by hand, but I like making cutters when I can. I also dusted the letters with some silver luster dust to give it added sparkle and shine. I attached the letters to the sewer cover with a little water. After the sewer top was completely dried, I glued a bamboo skewer to the back using melted candy melts.
On decorating day, I tinted my buttercream with AmeriColor Stone food gel then frosted and stacked the cakes. Next I started cutting out red bricks for the bottom tier. (Of course I made a cutter for this.) Before cutting out the bricks I textured the fondant with another fabric weave texture mat from the set mentioned above.
I
also added a little black and brown petal dust to make the bricks more interesting.
Then it was just a matter of placing all those bricks on the side of the cake. In hindsight I should have put the bricks closer together, but by the time I noticed my mistake, it was too late to reposition what I had already done. Note that I also use the JEM #2 Strip cutter to make a border for the top tier. I used the tiny circle tool to make the marks and dusted with black petal dust. I think the black dust really makes it look like aging metal.
Also notice that I used a 14" black cake drum for this cake and offset the cake on the drum to give me more room in the front for my pizza toppings.
Next, I started making the metal plates for the top tier. I just cut out random rectangular pieces of silver fondant, added tiny fondant circles to represent nuts & bolts, dusted with some black petal dust, and stuck them to the side of the cake with a dab of water. But not too much water. Too much water will make the fondant ooze and slide around. And you want to just moisten little sections of the fondant, not the entire piece.
Next I attached the sewer cover and TMNT heads to the top of the cake, and then secured the sewer tube on the side of the cake.
The final part was decorating the drum. I smeared some red buttercream all over the base - this will be the pizza sauce.
And then I made a long sausage shaped wad of ivory colored fondant for the crust. Before placing the crust, I dabbed a little piping gel onto the drum. The piping gel helps the fondant stick to the drum and keeps it from sliding around. But don't use too much gel or it will ooze out and make a mess.
Then I positioned the sausage of ivory fondant, pushed my fingers into it to make it look like hand-thrown crust, and dusted it with brown and orange petal dust to give it a baked look.
The cheese on the pizza is grated candy melts. I used yellow and white. Note I used the more ivory white rather than the Bright White.
I sprinkled on the "cheese", and added some pizza toppings. The pepperoni are just red fondant circles and I added some dots using a white edible marker. For the slime coming out of the pipe, I used strips of fondant that I colored with ROLKEM UV-florescent Lunar Yellow edible food color. The glow-in-the-dark color gives it that luminous look. I bought the ROLKEM colors for a Glow Party cake I did recently. I had the coloring leftover, so I just used it on this cake.
So here is the finished cake. I wonder what Leland will want next year.
Happy Decorating,
Carol
