Nothing but BARK - Woodland / Stump Cake

Stump Cakes are all the rage for "guy" parties.  Everything from Baby's First Birthday to Bro-Showers to Grand-Paw's 80th birthday are going with the Woodland theme. So when a friend request one I jumped on the chance to give it a try.  And despite my initial angst, the cake was surprisingly easy to make.

There were three parts to this cake: 1) the  Ax, 2) a cake board that looked like wood and was thick enough to hold up the Ax, and 3) the "bark" of the stump.  

To me the "bark" was the biggest unknown.  I researched a few different ways of making the bark (chocolate curls, fondant ropes, bark impression mats, etc), but decided on the easiest method I could find: melted chocolate.  

I just melt some chocolate (I actually used some ganache I had leftover from a previous cake), and using a offset spatula smeared lines of chocolate on some wax paper.  My cake was 7-1/2 inches tall so I marked off lines on the wax paper to make sure my chocolate lines were long enough.  I made the surface extra lumpy and uneven, because, hey, when have you ever seen a smooth piece of tree bark. And make sure you make them relatively thick - if the chocolate is too thin it will crumble when you peal them from the paper.

After the wax paper was filled with "bark", I popped it into the freezer till it harden.  Then carefully, cautiously I removed the harden strips of chocolate from the paper.  Once free from the wax paper, I stuck them to the side of the cake using chocolate buttercream as glue.

How easy is that?  And don't worry if the strips break into pieces.  Just slap the pieces anywhere you want.  The beauty of a stump cake is that you DON'T want it to look perfect.

And the gaps?  No worries there.  If you end up with large gaps between your chocolate strips...

Just use a paint brush and fill in the holes with a little bit of melted chocolate.  But what if your melted chocolate is a different color from your chocolate bark strips??  Well, that's all the better.  The various shades will make your Stump Cake look even more realistic.

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Next to give the bark a little "life", I painted on some edible luster dust.  I used brown and black and some white. I tried green for a moss-like effect, but it didn't look very good.

I went a little overboard with the white, but after a night in the refrigerator the white dulled down a bit.

PS: Here is the top of the cake.  I just swirled the "tree rings" into the buttercream using a spoon.

The second challenge to this cake was the Ax.  I thought about using a real one, but they were too expensive (and not really food safe).  So I made my own!!    I built an armature out of balsa wood and aluminum foil, and then covered the handle section in tan fondant.  I scored the length of the handle to give it a wood-like look.

Next I used black fondant to make the ax blade.  I scored random lines and dings in the soft fondant to make the blade look old and used.

A little powder food color in black and brown to make the blade and wooden handle look more life-like...

And then a final touch of edible silver powder food color to give the blade a shiny look...

The final challenge of this Stump Cake was the board under the cake.  I wanted it to look like wooden planks, so I used a technique I found on YouTube called  Weathered Fondant Effect Using Wafer Paper by Kass. Again the technique is so easy and yet it gives amazing results.  The finished fondant board looks like real weathered wood.  Here is an example from the Bear Head Smash Cake that I also made for this Woodland Theme party. This board was made with gray fondant.

The first step to making the weathered board is to choose the fondant for the base color.  For the Stump Cake I wanted a brown toned board, so I gathered up a bunch of fondant scraps in all different colors and squished them together.  I know it looks like some strange sea creature, but it is fondant.

Roll out the fondant to fit the size of the edible wafer paper, and then trim the fondant to fit the paper.

Wet the wafer paper with water.

Use a small roller to roll the fondant and wafer paper together.   The fondant will stretch and thin as you roll it, but the wafer paper can't stretch so it will rip and tear instead.

The more you roll, the more the wafer paper will be shredded and the more the "wood" will look weathered.

When you get the look you want, use a strip cutter to cut the fondant into evenly sized "planks".

Then simply place the planks on your cake board.  I wasn't sure if I would have enough of my "sea creature" colored fondant, so I skimped and left the center of the cake board empty.

I let the board dry overnight, and then I added some additional color with the edible powder food colors in black and brown.

And below is the finished "weathered wood" fondant board.  A night in the refrigerator also increased the "weathered" look.  The cold air really dried out the wafer paper and made it curl up even more.  This technique is so neat.

So this ends my Stump Cake adventure.   Give it a try for your next Guy party, it really is a fun (and easy) cake to make. 


Happy Decorating,

Carol

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

Minion Hawaiian Hula Skirt Cake

Don't you just love those Minion???  

So adorable, so amusing, 

and soooo tasty when they are in cake form.

Another of my cousins requested this cake for her daughter's second birthday.  The birthday girl is in love with Minions, and since I love Minions too, this was a very fun cake to make.

If you have read any of my other posts, you know that time management is my Achilles heal: things always take 3 times as long as I expect them to.  So to get ahead of the curve, I made a few of the cake decorations in advance.

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For the coconut bathing suit top I just cut out a circle from brown gumpaste, and then scored and cut the top of the gumpaste to make it look fuzzy and hairy like a real coconut.  I kept it in the cookie cutter so it wouldn't pull out of shape while I slashed up the top. 

Then I put it on top of a light bulb while it dried so it would have a "C" cup instead of a barely "A" cup.

Next came the Minion goggles, again out of gumpaste.  Here is a view of the back side of the goggles.  I don't have a picture, but to make sure the goggles would wrap snugly around the finished cake I placed the piece on the curved side on an 8" cake dummy while the gumpaste dried. After it dried, I painted it with some edible silver luster dust that I mixed with vodka to form a thin paste.  The luster dust made the goggles really shiny and sparkly.

The flowers were also gumpaste.  I used the FMM Hawaiian flower cutter set and some Wilton stamens for the center.

The cake itself was a two tiered, double barrel, 8" tower of white almond goodness.  The bottom tier was three layers, and the top tier was 4 layers counting the carved layer that made the dome shaped head. 

For the base of the top tier I used a foam core board instead of a regular cardboard round.  The foam core is more expensive, but it is also much, much sturdier than cardboard (especially when the cardboard gets damp and soft and starts to bend).  In my mind the extra 2 bucks is worth the price. 

In total the cake was about 11" high.  

Next comes the fondant.  I used Mona Lisa Fondant for this cake and tinted it using Wilton's Golden Yellow.  This is a great fondant if you live in an area with high humidity.  It stays dry as a bone and doesn't get clammy or gooey even on the most humid days.

Okay, time to start decorating.  First I made some hands, feet, and spiky hair pieces.

Made the eyes too...

Then I started cutting leaves for the grass hula skirt.  I actually made three different shades of green, but I guess I didn't make the shades different enough cause once they were on the cake they all looked the same.  I used a generic Wilton leaf cutter, and then cut the edges to make it look more tropical.

Before placing the leaves on the cake I marked the cake itself using a Wilton Cake Marker tool.  I did this to make sure my line stayed straight and didn't meander up and down as I moved around the cake. 

Then I just started placing the leaves.  When all of the leaves were in position, I places a narrow length of fondant on top of the leaves to simulate the waist band of the hula skirt.

I worked from the base up.  The legs/feet first, hula skirt next, then the coconut bikini top.  On the back of the Minion I looped the fondant strings for the bikini top to make it look like the strings were tied together.

Next came the mouth.  Hummm.... I didn't like the first mouth I put on the Minion so I took it off and just left the space blank till I decided on a new style of mouth to use.  Eyes came next.  I actually placed the eye balls inside the goggles and then placed the goggles and eyes onto the cake.  Once the eyes were positioned I removed the goggles and put them in a safe place.  I was afraid the fragile goggles would fall off and break while I was working on the cake!  I am somewhat of a klutz.

Next I put on an improvised mouth.  I really wanted an open mouth on my Minion.  Something with a cheeky grin and shining white teeth, but I settled on just a rope of fondant.  I also put a green head band on my Minion.  My gumpaste hibiscus wouldn't stay in place, so I needed something to hold the flowers up.  In hind-sight I should have put the flowers on a toothpick so I could stick them directly into the cake, but DUH, I forgot.

In the end the head band held the flowers in place, so no biggie.

The arms went on last.  I thought I would have a problem keeping them in place, but surprisingly the top of the floppy arms stuck to the main cake with just a touch of water.  I just used a little bit of plastic wrap to keep them away from the body as they dried,

So here is the finished cake.  I pulled another all-nighter with this cake, but the birthday girl seemed happy.  (Even though the goggles were positioned a little crooked and one eye lid was a bit droopy.  How come I never see these things till I look at the pictures!!!)

Happy Decorating,

Carol