Sunday, November 5, 2017

Cutest (and Easiest) Bear Head Cake

A friend asked me to make a Bear Head smash cake for her 1 year old's birthday, and I say so myself it turned out soooo cute.  Best part is - it was AMAZINGLY easy to make.



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First I baked three 7" cakes.  (I like to use Fat Daddio's pans and bake even strips to make sure the cakes bake up flat and even. ) I stacked 2 layers for the head, and then cut out circles from the third layer for the snout and ears. (I had to test different sizes till I found the one that looked "right" next to the head.) I cut out little arcs from the ears to make them fit flush with the head.  Then I iced the main head in chocolate buttercream and then iced the snout and ears in a very light shade of brown buttercream.


I used the little arcs I cut from the ears as the eyebrow ridge.  In hindsight I should have cut the arcs in half so they weren't as tall.  After I iced the eyebrows, my bear ended up with a Neanderthal ridge. :-)

The eyes and nose I made from black fondant.  As a last step I painted the eyes and nose with corn syrup to make them shine and placed a little with ball of fondant on each eye to make them sparkle.


Next came the piping of the "fur".  I used a Wilton 233 grass tip, and a very soft chocolate buttercream icing.


It took about 90 minutes to pipe the fur, but I had to stop a couple of times to refrigerate the icing because it was getting too soft.  You know it is getting too soft if you get a mushy blob instead of individual points of fur.


I just kept piping and eventually finished the cake.   Too cute.  Many thanks to the different bear cakes on Pinterest for the inspiration.


And if you are wondering about the board -- well it is fondant and not real wood!!  You make it with fondant and rice/wafer paper and a little bit of powdered food color.

Here is a link to a quick YouTube video by Cakes by Kass showing the process. It really is super easy


Happy Decorating,

Carol