3D 2
Tacosaurus
by Jarid Altmark · submitted Sep 28, 2014 · 2014 contest
1 / 21
Description
Hi! I am Jarid from South Florida and I am 14 years old. I was so excited to here that the Threadcakes competition has started. I actually picked this design 4 weeks early. Anyway, let us get to the cake!
Step One: Stare at some Tacos. I even went to the third page of Google to find all of the reference I needed to make the perfect taco shape. BRAVE I know!
Step Two: Structure. I didn't use anything scary in my structure. Unless you are scared of dowels and cardboard. If so I apologize, it will be covered with fondant later. Anyway, I used the white Elmer's cardboard stuff and dowels. Complex I know! The cardboard was around 1.5" wide. When it comes to cake that is really thin, so I wanted to make sure those dowels weren't going anywhere so I used gorilla glue. You can probably use hot glue but I just wanted no chances of this thing going KAPUT (Is that a thing?)
Step Three: Bake till you break. I baked two half sheet cakes and had so much left over. Also, to get all of the measurements for this cake
I measured features from the design and then multiplied it by 6. I chose six because I did not want the cake to big or small. A good tip for all cake designs! Lastly, I whipped up some Swiss Meringue Buttercream.
Step Four: Stack. I cut the cakes in 2" wide strips just so there was some wiggle room just in case the whole thing crumbled to pieces(like my tacos always do, but THIS ONE WON"T). I stacked two of those and then I supported them with drinking straws then placed a 2" wide cardboard on top of that just to start giving it that hard tortilla shape. I then stacked three 2.5" wide cake strips on top of that board. Instead of straws I used dowels to support the whole cake as opposed to just that "layer". I used bamboo kabob skewers. They are cheap and pre-sharpened, a cake decorator's dream. Lastly, you CHILL. CHILLING YOUR CAKES IS REALLY IMPORTANT!(sorry I didn't mean to yell)
Step Four: Carvin'. I cut out the shape I sort of wanted in parchment paper for a template to guide my SERRATED knife. I ended up needing to trim after that, but it was a good place to start. Just crumb coat and then we are ready for fondant. After CHILLING!
Step Five: Fondant. I made another parchment paper template the exact size of my cake. I rolled my fondant with an inch exceeding the whole template to cover the bottom of my board and to make the fondant stand up a little around the curve of the taco because no one likes a flat taco. Plus that would be way to easy. I textured my fondant with a homemade silicone texture made using an assortment of materials to give it texture. After texturing I put it in the freezer just so it was easier to work with. I placed both cutouts on the CHILLED cake and smoothed out some of the seams with water. Lastly, I dry brushed and painted it using my homemade petal dusts
Step Six: The goods. I made the ground beef by making my hand really sticky with wet fondant and then rolled balls to give some texture. Then I airbrushed with my petal dusts mixed with lemon extract to make them brown. For the lettuce I made another texture mat. I squeezed some light green fondant in to the two part texture mat. Then I airbrushed to give it more realism. For the tomatoes I made a light red color and cut them into squares. For the cheese I rolled uneven logs of yellow fondant. Lastly for the tortilla spikes I used the same techniques as on the tortilla on the cake just with assorted sizes of triangles
Step Seven: Limbs. The head and tail was supported with copper wire and carved with green modeling chocolate. And the legs was green modeling chocolate just wrapped around the dowels and on to the side of the cake.
I hope you enjoy!
-Jarid
Jarid's Awesome Cakes
Step One: Stare at some Tacos. I even went to the third page of Google to find all of the reference I needed to make the perfect taco shape. BRAVE I know!
Step Two: Structure. I didn't use anything scary in my structure. Unless you are scared of dowels and cardboard. If so I apologize, it will be covered with fondant later. Anyway, I used the white Elmer's cardboard stuff and dowels. Complex I know! The cardboard was around 1.5" wide. When it comes to cake that is really thin, so I wanted to make sure those dowels weren't going anywhere so I used gorilla glue. You can probably use hot glue but I just wanted no chances of this thing going KAPUT (Is that a thing?)
Step Three: Bake till you break. I baked two half sheet cakes and had so much left over. Also, to get all of the measurements for this cake
I measured features from the design and then multiplied it by 6. I chose six because I did not want the cake to big or small. A good tip for all cake designs! Lastly, I whipped up some Swiss Meringue Buttercream.
Step Four: Stack. I cut the cakes in 2" wide strips just so there was some wiggle room just in case the whole thing crumbled to pieces(like my tacos always do, but THIS ONE WON"T). I stacked two of those and then I supported them with drinking straws then placed a 2" wide cardboard on top of that just to start giving it that hard tortilla shape. I then stacked three 2.5" wide cake strips on top of that board. Instead of straws I used dowels to support the whole cake as opposed to just that "layer". I used bamboo kabob skewers. They are cheap and pre-sharpened, a cake decorator's dream. Lastly, you CHILL. CHILLING YOUR CAKES IS REALLY IMPORTANT!(sorry I didn't mean to yell)
Step Four: Carvin'. I cut out the shape I sort of wanted in parchment paper for a template to guide my SERRATED knife. I ended up needing to trim after that, but it was a good place to start. Just crumb coat and then we are ready for fondant. After CHILLING!
Step Five: Fondant. I made another parchment paper template the exact size of my cake. I rolled my fondant with an inch exceeding the whole template to cover the bottom of my board and to make the fondant stand up a little around the curve of the taco because no one likes a flat taco. Plus that would be way to easy. I textured my fondant with a homemade silicone texture made using an assortment of materials to give it texture. After texturing I put it in the freezer just so it was easier to work with. I placed both cutouts on the CHILLED cake and smoothed out some of the seams with water. Lastly, I dry brushed and painted it using my homemade petal dusts
Step Six: The goods. I made the ground beef by making my hand really sticky with wet fondant and then rolled balls to give some texture. Then I airbrushed with my petal dusts mixed with lemon extract to make them brown. For the lettuce I made another texture mat. I squeezed some light green fondant in to the two part texture mat. Then I airbrushed to give it more realism. For the tomatoes I made a light red color and cut them into squares. For the cheese I rolled uneven logs of yellow fondant. Lastly for the tortilla spikes I used the same techniques as on the tortilla on the cake just with assorted sizes of triangles
Step Seven: Limbs. The head and tail was supported with copper wire and carved with green modeling chocolate. And the legs was green modeling chocolate just wrapped around the dowels and on to the side of the cake.
I hope you enjoy!
-Jarid
Jarid's Awesome Cakes
