picket.

Who knows what archaeological wonders are lurking beneath our houses and roads, our gardens and fences?! Needless to say, if they are made of cake, they are well worth excavating.

I was intrigued by the concept of the “Picket” design and wanted to see how I could make it into a cake. I don’t think it was 100% successful, but I’m happy with the attempt. To start with, I baked two vanilla cakes (with real vanilla beans!) and let them cool. Next, I stuck them together with a thin layer of jam, and cut off the edges to make them uniform and square.
Using a stegosaurus dinosaur cookie cutter, I began the process of hollowing out the cake. I pushed the cookie cutter into the cake a little ways, then cut down to be able to remove the cake, pushed it in a bit more, removed more cake, and so on, until most of the cake was excavated. I left the end section whole to make sure the thing still stayed together! With the cake I’d cut out of the middle, I crumbled it up and added chocolate ganache, in the same manner cake pops are made. I mixed this all together and then stuffed it back into the cake. I lost a little bit of definition at this point but was able to keep the cake together.

I mixed up some chocolate buttercream icing to act as the layer of dirt, and spread it on the cake. I left one end icing-free so that I could see where the dino-image was. Once this had set, I covered the cake with green fondant, with a small cut-out of grey fondant to act as they driveway. I brushed the fondant with some water and added green sugar sprinkles to act as the grass.

To construct the house and the picket fence, I cut out pieces of fondant and let them harden overnight. For the picket fence, I was able to use the cookie cutter – but had to freehand the house. I painted the house with a mix of gel colouring and vodka, and added details with white fondant strips. I let these dry another night before placing them on the cake.
I cut out two ridges in the cake so I could place the house and the picket fence into them. I used an extra piece of rolled up fondant to support the house in the back, but was happily surprised to see it required very little support to stand up.

Finally, I cut the cake – both to eat, and to reveal the design inside! It tasted very nicely of vanilla, I think because I used the vanilla beans instead of vanilla essence – and the dinosaur was almost fudge-like due to the chocolate ganache. I was very happy with the way the cake turned out, although I would have preferred better definition in the dinosaur. I took the cake to work where my colleagues were more than happy to help me unearth this monster of prehistoric times!