This cake was made for my nephew’s 8th birthday, which was the perfect occasion to experiment with new techniques. Since he wasn’t a paying customer, I felt completely free to mess up (which I did manage to do – you may notice that you haven’t been treated to a view of the lion that’s chasing the zebra around the side of the cake). Come to think of it, I really owe my nephew and his four older siblings a debt of gratitude. I recently calculated that I’ve had the opportunity to experiment with at least 50 cakes for them over the years!
One technique I played with was painting the trees directly onto the cake. In the past, I have either made three dimensional trees, like the palm trees on the top of this cake, or cut fondant into tree shapes and attached them to the cake. These trees were painted freehand, which I’ve been reluctant to risk doing previously because once you’ve done it, there’s no going back. But now I realize that you really can’t go wrong, particularly when your subject is the unpredictable natural world.
On this cake, the palm trees and all the animals were made of modeling chocolate, a substance made by melting chocolate and mixing it with corn syrup. It sounds simple but you have to use the correct proportions and be careful not to stir too little or too much – a delicate balance. Many thanks to Tammy Youngerwood who taught me how to get it right.
Next time I’ll be sure not to leave the cake in the sun.
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