3D Finalist 1
Elephant s Paradise
by Halliegh Marston · submitted Nov 3, 2013 · 2013 contest
1 / 15
Description
This is my first year doing ThreadCakes. I discovered the competition last year during summer vacation AFTER submissions had closed. After looking through all the cakes and eligible designs I decided I had to enter. Just because I wanted to test my skills.
I’ve been decorating cakes for about 3 years now and work mostly in fondant. Sculpted cakes are my favorite things to work on.
I came across Elephant’s Paradise and knew it was the one I had to make into a cake. A giant peanut and tiny elephants ! Too funny.
I started out by making the ganache I would use to cover the cake under the fondant. I made this first because it would need overnight to set enough to work with. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and heated heavy cream. I put the chocolate in the food processor and pulsed it until it was pretty tiny pieces. This would make melting easier and less likely to have lumpy ganache. Whisked in heated heavy cream until combined. By morning it was beautifully spreadable.
Next I made the modeling chocolate for the elephants. My modeling chocolate was made from candy melts and corn syrup. I used white candy melts with a few black melts dropped in to make gray. I wrapped this up and let it cure for several hours.
Thirdly I made the cake. For this I used boxed pound cake. My helper one day bought it my mistake and I was saving it to play with lucky for me ThreadCakes was coming up!
I made 4 9x5 loaves of pound cake.
After they were baked and cooled they were leveled and filled with vanilla buttercream and stacked one loaf on top of another so I had 2 blocks of cake. These blocks were chilled in the freezer for about an hour until they were firm enough to carve.
While the cakes chilled I started sculpting the modeling chocolate elephants. There were 4 elephants and each took about 30 minutes to make. I used modeling chocolate because it blends together unlike gumpaste or fondant and won’t leave seams or wrinkles in your work. The only downside is it’ll melt if you have hot hands. Luckily they set pretty quickly too. Set those aside and went back to the cake.
By now the cake is firm enough to carve. I started out rounding all the sharp edges and making a football shape with each cake block. I used a serrated knife to cut the shape of the actual nut into the broken shell too.
When the cake was carved I covered it in the semi-sweet chocolate ganache. It was a little tricky getting it in all the nooks and crannies. I had to dig out my tiny palette knife. After it was completely covered I chilled in the fridge for a bit. Once the chocolate had set a bit I smoothed it a bit more with my cake dedicated putty knife and my trusty brulee torch.
At this point I had to decide how to create the little wells in the shell of the peanut. I settled on rolling out snakes of fondant and laying out a grid of squares on top of the ganache. I made sure the squares were imperfect and irregularly shaped. Having this grid under the fondant covering will give me a guideline and add depth.
With the grid down it was time to cover the cake.
I went ahead and used some Satin Ice I had on hand. I’m not a SI fan, it dries out too fast and wrinkles horribly but I figured that was ok since it was a peanut shell. It would add more character and realism.
The whole cake was covered in one sheet of fondant. I used my best sculpting tools, my fingers, to smooth the fondant into the wells created by the snakes beneath. I gently pinched at the raised areas to raise them a tad more.
So close to being done!!!
Now comes the fun stuff……AIRBRUSHING!!! I just love my airbrush.
I covered the entire cake and base in a light yellow first and slowly built up the brown. I sprayed at an angle so the color would collect in the wells of the shell and leave some white highlights in the raised spots.
The peanut on the ground was sculpted from rice krispie treats and covered in fondant.
The reddish skin of the peanut is super thinly rolled fondant.
The very last thing I did was add some color to the elephants. I brushed them with a mix of black gel food coloring and vodka which I immediately wiped off. I only wanted the color to stay in the wrinkles and detail of the body but not change the color of the whole animal.
All that was left was to place the elephants, photograph then eat!!!
The whole process took about 3 days.
I know it isn’t a perfect representation of the t-shirt design but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot!
I’ve been decorating cakes for about 3 years now and work mostly in fondant. Sculpted cakes are my favorite things to work on.
I came across Elephant’s Paradise and knew it was the one I had to make into a cake. A giant peanut and tiny elephants ! Too funny.
I started out by making the ganache I would use to cover the cake under the fondant. I made this first because it would need overnight to set enough to work with. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and heated heavy cream. I put the chocolate in the food processor and pulsed it until it was pretty tiny pieces. This would make melting easier and less likely to have lumpy ganache. Whisked in heated heavy cream until combined. By morning it was beautifully spreadable.
Next I made the modeling chocolate for the elephants. My modeling chocolate was made from candy melts and corn syrup. I used white candy melts with a few black melts dropped in to make gray. I wrapped this up and let it cure for several hours.
Thirdly I made the cake. For this I used boxed pound cake. My helper one day bought it my mistake and I was saving it to play with lucky for me ThreadCakes was coming up!
I made 4 9x5 loaves of pound cake.
After they were baked and cooled they were leveled and filled with vanilla buttercream and stacked one loaf on top of another so I had 2 blocks of cake. These blocks were chilled in the freezer for about an hour until they were firm enough to carve.
While the cakes chilled I started sculpting the modeling chocolate elephants. There were 4 elephants and each took about 30 minutes to make. I used modeling chocolate because it blends together unlike gumpaste or fondant and won’t leave seams or wrinkles in your work. The only downside is it’ll melt if you have hot hands. Luckily they set pretty quickly too. Set those aside and went back to the cake.
By now the cake is firm enough to carve. I started out rounding all the sharp edges and making a football shape with each cake block. I used a serrated knife to cut the shape of the actual nut into the broken shell too.
When the cake was carved I covered it in the semi-sweet chocolate ganache. It was a little tricky getting it in all the nooks and crannies. I had to dig out my tiny palette knife. After it was completely covered I chilled in the fridge for a bit. Once the chocolate had set a bit I smoothed it a bit more with my cake dedicated putty knife and my trusty brulee torch.
At this point I had to decide how to create the little wells in the shell of the peanut. I settled on rolling out snakes of fondant and laying out a grid of squares on top of the ganache. I made sure the squares were imperfect and irregularly shaped. Having this grid under the fondant covering will give me a guideline and add depth.
With the grid down it was time to cover the cake.
I went ahead and used some Satin Ice I had on hand. I’m not a SI fan, it dries out too fast and wrinkles horribly but I figured that was ok since it was a peanut shell. It would add more character and realism.
The whole cake was covered in one sheet of fondant. I used my best sculpting tools, my fingers, to smooth the fondant into the wells created by the snakes beneath. I gently pinched at the raised areas to raise them a tad more.
So close to being done!!!
Now comes the fun stuff……AIRBRUSHING!!! I just love my airbrush.
I covered the entire cake and base in a light yellow first and slowly built up the brown. I sprayed at an angle so the color would collect in the wells of the shell and leave some white highlights in the raised spots.
The peanut on the ground was sculpted from rice krispie treats and covered in fondant.
The reddish skin of the peanut is super thinly rolled fondant.
The very last thing I did was add some color to the elephants. I brushed them with a mix of black gel food coloring and vodka which I immediately wiped off. I only wanted the color to stay in the wrinkles and detail of the body but not change the color of the whole animal.
All that was left was to place the elephants, photograph then eat!!!
The whole process took about 3 days.
I know it isn’t a perfect representation of the t-shirt design but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot!
