Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!

Submitter's Comments: (High Res Image)
This year it was a bit tougher to choose a design. I wanted to try my hand at a cake with no inedible supports so it was important to choose a design that could be created entirely in cake.
No standing Yoshi’s this year.
I finally settled on “Car Pooling Is Fun” by Alvaro Arteaga, it was adorable, fun and could totally be carved from 100% cake!

I’m not much of a planner so I just up and started one day when I had some free time. After inventorying my pantry I decided to go with a White Chocolate Mud cake, because I only had white chocolate chips and no dark chocolate (which is my fav).
I choose a mud cake because they are sturdy and carve nicely, and I needed all the help I could get since I wasn’t using any supports.

So I searched the internet for a recipe, found one that had some great reviews and started.
I found out something useful, chocolate CAN be melted together with milk, who knew? I sure didn’t! I always thought it would seize up unless it was melted with heavy cream, so Threadcakes is fun and educational!
For the cakes I baked a 10” square and a few 5” and 4” rounds, let them cool in the pan and then leveled and split them, the 10“ got cut in half to form a 10“X 5“ rectangle.

I had some leftover ganache from another cake a few days earlier so instead of throwing it away and added some vanilla butter cream to it, whipped it up and had some chocolate butter cream.
I started stacking, first the rectangle, with a nice layer of butter cream in between the cakes, then came the 5” and 4” rounds.
Next I stuck it in the fridge to get nice and cold, a cold cake is much easier to carve then a room temp one.

After it was chilled I started carving it, I carved out the shape of the car and then the animals bodies.
I left the back of the cake mostly un-carved because I need it to be strong to support the weight of the rest of the cake.
After that I crumb coated it and back in the fridge while I made the cake clay.
Cake clay is a mixture of butter cream and left over cake scraps, mix it together and it makes a tasty ,edible and moldable clay.
I added some more details to the “bodies” of the animals, elephant head, giraffe neck, hippo belly etc. with the cake clay.
Then another coat of butter cream.
I also had some leftover fondant which again instead of throwing away I decided to use.
I rolled it out and covered the cake in 2 pieces, one for the car and one for the animals.

Now the fun part, creating the animals.
I used fondant mixed with tylose powder and candy sticks instead of dowels for some of the larger heads.
I knew they would be too heavy to stay on they cake themselves, and since candy sticks are edible I gave them a try and it worked!
Over the next day I worked on and off on the figures, some I had to make and let dry before putting on the cake and some I put on the cake and let dry.
Once I had all the animals and details made I started painting.
I used gel food color mixed with vodka to create a water color look.
The design reminded me of a water color illustration from a children’s book, so that’s the look I went for.
I did the base colors first and then worked on the details.
It took about 2 days to complete because it was SO hot in the house I could only paint at night once the sun went down and it started to cool off. At one point it was 84 degrees with the a/c on!
Because the cake had no internal support I kept having to put it back in the fridge to chill it up again and keep it from leaning.
Once I had the cake painted I covered the board with more fondant, textured it and painted it also, then added on the little details I had let dry.
Some I glued on with sugar glue which is water and tylose mixed together and some I used melted white chocolate to attach.
Some were just delicately balanced and I had to be careful when moving the cake. Usually I would use a toothpick to attach things but not this time, this time I just had to keep my fingers crossed.
The only inedible objects on the cake are 2 tiny toothpicks that I used for legs for the little bird standing on the hippo.
I didn’t want to use them but I had to if I wanted the bird to stand.
And that’s that, I was done! The only thing left was to eat it.

We had a baseball game that night, double header so we got home kind of late but the kids were all kinds of ready for the cake,
After watching me make it for a few days they were excited to finally get to eat it. So I took the knife to it, served it and it was very much enjoyed!
The white chocolate mud cake and chocolate butter cream were a awesome combo!
So I set out to make a 100% edible cake and other then the 2 tiny toothpicks I accomplished that task.
I would say 99.9% of the cake is edible, and there are no internal supports or dowels.
In total, working on and off for a few days they cake took about 14-16 hours.
I had fun this year, already looking forward to next year!