3D 1
The Choir of Antarctica
by Tanya Austin · submitted Jun 30, 2011 · 2011 contest
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Description
When we started sifting through the shirt designs to pick a cake inspiration, the Choir of Antarctica immediately hit us as being adorable and adaptable to a fun design. Those little Twinkie-shaped penguins were crying out to be made!
The base cake was made of two boxes of white cake mix, tinted with blue and violet gel food coloring to get varying shades of icy blue. We used pound cake for the penguins, but since we didn't have any Twinkie-shaped pans, we made our own using spice bottles and a double layer of aluminum foil. We were a little worried that they wouldn't come out well, but the pans held up and the cakes popped out without sticking at all!
Next we rolled out a double batch of homemade marshmallow fondant, which we used to cover the penguins. We'd originally intended to do the black parts in a separate layer of black fondant, but at the last moment we realized that we'd run out of black gel food coloring! We tried a spray bottle of black "mist" coloring (they sell it in the grocery store for cupcakes), but it came out a pale, sickly lavender-ish color that dripped everywhere. Finally, we just started mixing together all of the other dark shades of food coloring we had, and since by that point we were out of fondant, we painted it directly onto the penguins. Success!
We stacked the blue cakes and crumb-coated them, then piped a border around the top of the cake to make a dam for our Jello layer-- we wanted something to look like water or ice, and figured that the white frosting and blue Jello would make for a nice effect. We'd chilled the Jello most of the way ahead of time, so it didn't run off the top of the cake. It ended up gelling in waves, which we actually liked better than the original "smooth" idea.
Then we used the last half cup or so of frosting (it took a lot more than we'd expected!) to adhere the penguins to the sides of the cake-- they just came up to the top! The cake was exactly 15 penguin-widths around. Since there were only 14 penguins in the original shirt design, we just added an extra one and created our own face for it. Once all 15 were attached, we rolled out yellow beaks and attached them with a basic powdered sugar icing, which we then used to pipe the faces.
The cake was a big success at our barbecue, especially with the neighbors' three-year-old daughter, who was extremely excited to have a penguin cake to match her favorite stuffed penguin toy! A great time was had by all, and we won't need to make dessert for at least another week!
The base cake was made of two boxes of white cake mix, tinted with blue and violet gel food coloring to get varying shades of icy blue. We used pound cake for the penguins, but since we didn't have any Twinkie-shaped pans, we made our own using spice bottles and a double layer of aluminum foil. We were a little worried that they wouldn't come out well, but the pans held up and the cakes popped out without sticking at all!
Next we rolled out a double batch of homemade marshmallow fondant, which we used to cover the penguins. We'd originally intended to do the black parts in a separate layer of black fondant, but at the last moment we realized that we'd run out of black gel food coloring! We tried a spray bottle of black "mist" coloring (they sell it in the grocery store for cupcakes), but it came out a pale, sickly lavender-ish color that dripped everywhere. Finally, we just started mixing together all of the other dark shades of food coloring we had, and since by that point we were out of fondant, we painted it directly onto the penguins. Success!
We stacked the blue cakes and crumb-coated them, then piped a border around the top of the cake to make a dam for our Jello layer-- we wanted something to look like water or ice, and figured that the white frosting and blue Jello would make for a nice effect. We'd chilled the Jello most of the way ahead of time, so it didn't run off the top of the cake. It ended up gelling in waves, which we actually liked better than the original "smooth" idea.
Then we used the last half cup or so of frosting (it took a lot more than we'd expected!) to adhere the penguins to the sides of the cake-- they just came up to the top! The cake was exactly 15 penguin-widths around. Since there were only 14 penguins in the original shirt design, we just added an extra one and created our own face for it. Once all 15 were attached, we rolled out yellow beaks and attached them with a basic powdered sugar icing, which we then used to pipe the faces.
The cake was a big success at our barbecue, especially with the neighbors' three-year-old daughter, who was extremely excited to have a penguin cake to match her favorite stuffed penguin toy! A great time was had by all, and we won't need to make dessert for at least another week!
