Imitated Caterpillar

I've been planning this cake since April (tried to make it once before and the whole thing collapsed), so when I finally got around to making it, I was determined that everything was going to go right. Hell, I even took a class on making toadstool cakes to make sure I'd get it right (I don't think this is what the teacher was going for).

The first time I tried to make this, I made two big mistakes. The first was that I didn't secure the central dowel to the board, the second was making the lower portion of the toadstool cap out of cake rather than rice krispie squares, which made the whole thing so heavy that collapse was inevitable.

Not this time.

I haunted hardware stores searching for the right structural equipment to make sure this thing stayed standing. I eventually found a short metal pole with a flat base which is normally used as a furniture leg, but it was exactly the right size for this cake. I glued this to the board and then I covered the whole thing in cling film so that nothing nasty would come in contact with the food. I managed to cover the board in green fondant, and then got to work on the tricky stuff.

As I've mentioned, the weight of the cake was my second problem, so a lot of this one was made of rice krispie squares. I set to making Jabba without any internal structure, although I kept the tail on with some wire. I covered the whole thing in royal icing, let it dry, and then covered it in green and yellow modelling chocolate (I made it myself, I think I did it wrong, it was essentially liquid). Halfway through this, I realised that I had the wrong shade of green, but it was too late to go back. I later went back over it with some green powder colour mixed with vodka, to get a better, slightly more sinister shade. I formed the facial features, skin folds, and arms out of fondant, which I covered in more modelling chocolate, and placed a wire in the corner of the mouth, which would later become the puff of smoke. Once all that was fully dry, I filled in the details with some melted coloured chocolate.

With the rest of rice krispies, I created the underside of the toadstool cap. I left a hole in the middle for the structure, then covered it in royal icing and more green modelling chocolate. I added details with melted chocolate and left it all to set.

Next, the cake parts. I got a 6 inch cake tin and a 3 inch pork pie tin for the cakes. Once baked and cooled, I carved the cakes down a little and hollowed out sections to accommodate the internal structure. I also put some smaller dowels in for the cap to sit on. I covered the stem in fondant and then put it onto the structure. Then I realised I didn't like the colour, so I took some of the left-over green modelling chocolate and covered it in that instead.

While I was waiting for the modelling chocolate to dry, I created the fondant decorations. I don't normally make standing figures, so Alice was tricky. I used a cake pop stick for support and started building up the figure. Originally, I was going to use some rice krispie squares for the body, but I couldn't get that to stick, so I did the whole thing with Mexican modelling paste. I formed the leaves and small toadstools with florists wire and cocktail sticks for support. Knowing it'd be tricky to place these features once the toadstool was up, I cut some holes through the fondant and the board so that they'd have something to stand in. I stuck them down with some melted chocolate, then surrounded each with a ring of fondant for extra stability.

While all that was setting, I carved the cake for the top of the toadstool and got it covered. As part of the top dips down, I attached some modelling paste to the board so that the fondant would drape over it. As soon as that was ready, I placed the lower half onto the support, then quickly added the top, hoping desperately that the whole thing wouldn't collapse. Once it became apparent that this wasn't going to happen, I put Jabba on top. I made his hookah and pipe out of more modelling paste and finally got around to adding the second arm to hold the pipe.

Since the bottom of the board wasn't looking too pretty, I painted green candy melts onto areas where grass is shown in the design, then spiked it up with a paintbrush.

Then the final challenge, the smoke. I have spent the last 3 weeks searching high and low for white candy floss. I found pink, blue and green, but never white. I contacted every sweet shop I could think of asking if they stocked it, but none did. Eventually, I found one place that sold tubs of very light pink candy floss, and that just had to suffice. I arranged the floss onto the wires, and then very rapidly started snapping pictures (candy floss doesn't stay very floss-y for long once it's exposed to the open air).

Since a lot of this entry was made of rice krispies, there wasn't much cake for eating, but what we were able to get out of it was pretty good overall. I also ate the remainder of the candy floss (a poor choice when one wants to sleep at night)