Wishless

I love dragons and tend to cover any scrap paintings with doodles of them, so it was only a matter of time before I made a massive dragon cake. I was sad that the design only came in children's sizes, but recreating it in edible form was enough fun to make up for the disappointment.

Thanks to a lot of experimenting with sugar glass and melted chocolate, this cake was 100% edible - although sufficiently big that it's still not 100% eaten (my housemates are working on it). Because I'm learning 3D modelling and am a nerd, I planned it out on Google Sketchup first.

The green 'base' was designed to support the mini cake and stand, and to help prop up the dragon's body. The dragon's neck and body is entirely cake, coated in a layer of white chocolate before I put the fondant on to make it extra strong. I left putting the fondant head on till the end, sticking it on with chocolate tinted green.

The wings are sugar glass, poured into an outline made of white icing. The sugar was so hot that it melted the outline slightly, so the wings are a little uneven round the edges - maybe the dragon got into a fight. The detail was piped on in more tinted melted chocolate, and then they were attached by means of slots in the neck, filled with even more chocolate.

I filled the mini cake with jam and buttercream, iced it, then coated the bottom with melted white chocolate (notice a theme here?)so I could make it 'float' above the stand, which was made of piped dark chocolate. To assemble it, I stuck the stand to the cake with melted chocolate, then put a layer of candy dots in the middle of it, resting the mini cake on top. The candles were made of more tinted chocolate, then stuck into holes on top of the mini cake.

The back was looking a bit plain and boring, so I thought I'd add some creative interpretation. What else would a dragon get at a birthday party but gold? I piled up presents made of fondant covered cake, and made a crown and tiara out of yellow chocolate piped round a foil covered tube. I can't decide whether these presents are from local peasants who don't want their daughters snatched, other dragons, or are part of a solitary birthday party roleplay - the last option is definitely the saddest.

Adding the flame at the end was probably the most stressful part, I was terrified the whole edifice would collapse like a cakey house of cards. I carefully rested it on a slot in the mini cake, then the melted chocolate had its last outing sticking the small end to the dragon's mouth.

Amazingly, the cake stood intact for the four hours before my friends arrived to eat it. Considering I made it over three days it was really moist too. I can't bear to eat the the dragon's head, so it's still sitting on my windowsill, crying a sugarglass tear.