I can’t believe another year of cake decorating has gone by! It was a great year with a lot of fun cakes. I think taking a moment to reflect on the year that has past is the perfect way to think about everything we have accomplished and all the challenges that we have overcome. The year is long and I often put things out of my mind as soon as they are DONE. It’s always onto the next thing, next event, next project. So I finally took the time to do a retrospective. It was another great year for cake decorating — I am so blessed to have so many people who put their trust into me!

I started the year with two cakes that couldn’t have been any more different. A cake for my niece with a luau theme and a last-minute Dr. Seuss cake. Both turned out so well! I loved using pirouettes on the luau cake to make a bamboo fence. And I loved drawing right on my Dr. Seuss cake to make it look like a Seuss drawing.

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One of the next things I did was start on my Beauty and the Beast cake. I have an entire post on this HERE. I gave it away 100% for free. It was my first and only contest so far. The family who received it loved it and said it was delicious.

I ticked two things off of my cake bucket list this year, which was be in a real cake competition and participate in a cake collaboration. With a little help from my friends, I made it to the New York Cake Show in June. I am still very shocked that I got GOLD. AND I got to take an in-person cake class with Mimi Cafe Union/Sachiko Windbiel. That was awesome!

The cake collaborations I did was one to benefit Anya, a wheel chair racer working her way to Toyko Olympics. And the other one I did was for a Halloween collab, Cakes that Go Bump in the Night.

One of my MOST FAVORITE cakes of the year was my neighbor Ava’s cake. I made her a very detailed scene from Cinderella. I even watched the movie again to get everything just right. The result was better than I could have ever wanted!

And my baby girl turned 2! At the time she was very much obsessed with Elmo (she still loves Elmo). I decided to make a bucket list item of mine, which is a 3D Elmo cake. He turned out kind of goofy-looking, BUT Alex LOVED him and he was a lot of fun to make My daughter, Rachel, even helped me pipe on some of the red fur. It really was a great centerpiece to her little party.

Sometimes we get cakes that are really challenging to us because we have no idea where to start on the theme. That was how I felt when I was tasked with making a board game cake. I had no idea, but board games have totally made a comeback in the biggest way in the last decade! I decided to combine handmade characters with game boards for a cake that incorporated everything great about the games.

I got to FINALLY make a big Star Wars cake, complete with the Death Star on top. I obsessed about this for weeks, trying to think of the best way to make the Death Star. You can read all about how I made it HERE. I know now that if your gray looks a little purple, just add some yellow. But I loved cutting out the letters, making the galaxy and seeing how it all came together so well.

For some reason I decided it would be fun to do a FACEBOOK LIVE while finishing my Easter bunny cake… And it was fun, my friends interacted with me, but then my phone died because it wasn’t plugged in! I wasn’t completely happy with the result, but my mom LOVED IT, and the new lemon cake recipe I used was absolutely delicious.

I got to make not one, but TWO graduation cakes this year. One for a regular customer and one for my nephew. They were so rewarding to make! I loved carefully cutting out the silouettes of the grads and the end result was very effective.

Cutting the Penn State logo out of fondant was quite a challenge, but somehow I got it done!

Another CHALLENGE of this year was an X-Box cake! I did a lot of research for this one and got a lot of use out of my clay extruder. But it came out SOOO well; I couldn’t believe it!

I challenged myself to make a cake for BOTH of my kids at their joint birthday party. It wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated and they both enjoyed their cakes. Rachel’s unicorn was chocolate with mint filling, a new cake for us — and it was awesome!

Ben’s cake was hand cut super heroes. I was going for a comic book look. I even found an Avengers font for his name. I used my edible marker to add all the line details.

Making a unicorn cake for Rachel was very fun! I was happy to FINALLY get in on the trend. They are rewarding to make and come together so quickly. The main thing is remembering to give everything enough time to dry out.

Not too long after their party, I got to make ANOTHER unicorn cake. They referenced some different pictures, so it was slightly different than Rachel’s. I thought that the eyes were too big at first, but everybody raved about this cakes in the comments. And my customer thought it was super cute, too!

I also made a super hero cake that was made with 100% buttercream decorations. I used frozen transfers and went for a comic book effect in the background. Ellie was so excited when she saw her cake!

Another couple of cakes I was excited to make were my Dunkin’ Donuts cakes — inspired by some cakes on Pinterest, particularly the one by Rach Makes Cakes. I made one for my sister as a surprise for her birthday and she absolutely loved it. And one of my customers loved it so much that she ordered one for her daughter! Inside the iced coffee cup is homemade whipped cream dyed with Wilton Ivory color.

Another cake that I was so excited about and went all out for was my niece’s birthday cake. She turned 16! It was three tiers in three different flavors. I designed it based off of her invitation, which was an ombre blue with blurry lights. The topper is a wedding topper from Michael’s. She was so happy with her cake! It fit in perfectly at her pretty party.

Another cake I really put a lot of effort into was my friends’ daughter’s birthday cake. She is a huge Frozen fan, so I surprised them with a toddler Anna and little girl Elsa cake. They’re at the beach and Elsa has made Olaf in the sand. I used my skills that I used in New York to make these figures and it was so rewarding! I even made a stand so that they could enjoy the figures for a little longer.

Yet another family/friend cake was this very special cake for my husband’s aunt Nancy. She turned 70 and I was asked to incorporate three very different things. Yoga, bridge, and tennis. I decided on a lotus flower, which is a symbol of yoga, a golden tennis racket, and playing cards made with edible images. She loved it and thanked me in her speech. Also, the top tier (chocolate) was one of my best chocolate cakes ever.

This Halloween season, I got to make two cakes. I used my Hocus Pocus figures again to make a cake for Halloween night. I made three additional characters and put them on the front. I was so happy with the result — even happier than the first time I used these figures!

The other cake was a Halloween themed birthday cake. I went for a vintage Halloween card theme. I used bass relief for the kitty and pumpkin. I dusted it to give it a vintage look.

I made a very blue bridal shower cake this year. I made this design before, based off of a shower card. This time, the writing came out even better than before! Writing by hand always makes me super nervous.

A really challenging cake for my was this “5” shaped cake with lots of super heros and custom cutting. I very carefully figured out how I could make a two layer 5 using only two recipes of cake. It was really hard to cover with fondant, and didn’t come out perfect, but my customer was very pleased with the cake.

One of my last cakes of the year was this first birthday cake for my nephew, Nicholas. His party was at the American Helicopter Museum in West Chester, PA. We had a lot of fun taking pictures of the cake among the helicopters — luckily it wasn’t a very busy day!

I was also very,  very pleased and honored for this fireman helmet for one of our own junior firemen of the Quakertown Fire Station! Nate’s very excited mom put her trust in me to make the perfect replica of his helmet. She really looked around until she found someone she felt could really handle it. No pressure!

I very carefully picked out the perfect edible images for the back “18”. Everything else was hand cut. It was the best way to end the year! He loved it and it was a huge hit at his firehouse party. We love our local heroes!

One last thing I should mention is I was honored to have been voted the Best Custom Caker for 2017. I had so much fun getting dressed up and going to the party. It was an experience I will never forget! I am so lucky to have such great fans!

Well, 2017 was a long and fruitful year. I had so many wonderful cake orders, both from strangers and family/friends. I truly appreciate your business. I save diligently to give my kids things that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I saved for their birthday parties, their Christmas, and so much more. And I couldn’t have done it without your business! Here is to a wonderful and delicious 2018!

So it’s Ellie’s birthday weekend again! I’ve made a cake for Ellie every year for the past few years; I have lost count. This year, we decided on a Funko Pop! Theme. At first I was going to make them out of fondant — easy peasy. But then I decided that these figures are such basic shapes that why not trying to make something with buttercream?

I have been very inspired by bakeries working in all buttercream, like Viva La Buttercream and White Flower Bake Shoppe. Last year, I made a Charlie Brown cake for Threadcakes and used the frozen buttercream technique, and it turned out great, so I was confident I could give it a go again.

First, I need to give credit where credit is due. There is a great tutorial on how to make buttercream transfers by Cake Journal: https://cakejournal.com/tutorials/how-to-make-a-frozen-buttercream-transfer/ . This truly tells you all you need to know about making buttercream transfers.

First, I looked at the characters she decided on – classic Wonder Woman and Batman. Then I gathered all my colors.

I cut out my templates and made sure everything fit correctly:

Then I made 5 lbs of American Buttercream. I use Toba Garrett’s Decorator’s Buttercream recipe. I had to guess how much of each color I needed.

I traced my picture onto parchment paper and flipped it over.

Then I made a bunch of bags fitted with small tips — 3, 2, and 1s. I usually avoid 1 tips because even when you sift your 10x (which I do), there tends to be clumps.

The first thing I did was make my black lines, then let it rest in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Then I did the white details, dots on her costume, and red star on Wonder Woman and filled in Batman’s white eyes.

I let it freeze a little white again, then filled in the skin color:

After letting it freeze a little bit more, I added the rest of the colors:

The next day, I softened some butter and made a small batch of buttercream. Believe it or not, I didn’t have enough buttercream! It is so hard to estimate your colors when making buttercream cakes and the consensus is that making too much of each color is better than not enough. So .. I didn’t have enough buttercream to crumb coat under my cake. I did a thick crumb coat on the top of my cake that was more like a regular coat because I like to be generous with my buttercream.

Then, after adding some fresh buttercream to the yellow and red to make sure I definitely had enough, I started the details on the top of the cake. I was going to do a starburst design, so I drew it into my crumb coat with a toothpick first.

Next, I colored in the yellow and the red and tried to smooth it out and blend where they met together.

Then, after letting the cake rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes, I smoothed it out with a Viva paper towel as best as I could. I scraped off and added to some areas to try and get it nice and even. Then I outlined it with a black line. I wanted to go for a comic book look.

I don’t have many pictures of the rest of the steps. After letting it chill again, I added the blue on the sides. Then I got a number 1 tip and added the dark red dots to make it look even more like a comic book.

From there, I added my buttercream transfers, which turned out pretty well! I smoothed them out with a paper towel, added white shine to Wonder Woman’s eyes and lined them a little bit more to really make them pop. I also made her name in a comic book font. I fixed that as best as I could. Then I wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY free hand. I added my border with my number 18 tips.

I also went back and added some silver luster dust to Wonder Woman’s cuffs. I didn’t paint it on. I just sort of dabbed it on (when the cake was chilled).

And then I took my pic and was all done!!

I know I have made more complicated cakes before — much more complicated. But there was something so nice about working in all-buttercream. And Ellie and her mom (and brother, too!) were so delighted!

Did I mention this cake was one of my very favorite cakes, King Arthur Golden Vanilla Cake — with mini chocolate chips? Before covering it with buttercream, I poked it with a toothpick and added simple syrup to ensure that it stayed moist.

See you next time!
Nichole

So right now it’s Tuesday, June 13, 2017. This past weekend was the 5th annual Lisa Mansour’s New York Cake Show. I can’t believe it, but I got GOLD. I had planned on making a blog about my cake but didn’t know that I would have such exciting news for you.

Here are a few pics of the show, then I am going to start my story about this cake!

THE PLANNING

I am very active on social media, and I have been watching cake shows from afar, Cake International in particular. But, being a Pennsylvania girl of modest income, a cake show in England is a far off goal. For a long time, I resigned to myself that a cake show was not in my future.

But last year I learned about Lisa Mansour’s  New York Cake show. It was only its fourth year, so it makes sense that I hadn’t heard about it. I was sad to have missed it, but made it my goal to try and go in 2017.

Then, around February or March, the theme was announced: Broadway. At first I was very narrow-minded. I thought to myself, “I don’t know anything about the modern shows like Hamilton … ” I posted about it on Facebook. And, let me tell you – I have the greatest friends. They all encouraged me to go. My friend Lea said she would help me go since she has worked in New York before, so she is super familiar with the area.

Someone suggested Phantom of the Opera and then light bulbs went off. I knew Phantom might be a popular choice, but if I could come up with an original and interesting design, I might be able to make something amazing for the show. No matter if I placed or not, I was ready for adventure and to finally go to a cake show in person!

I read the rules and read them two and three more times so that I was crystal clear on everything. I looked up images and started to really form ideas in my head. I made this sketch when I saw this famous image of Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman from the original 1988 cast.

Before I even registered, I quickly made some candles. I knew that candles could be so important.

I played around with sizes for the picture that I selected and held it up against my dummy cakes to get an idea of how it would look visually. I didn’t end up doing the music up top because there wasn’t any room for it, but more on that later.

MAKING THE PHANTOM

To make the Phantom and Christine, I first made a basic white gumpaste silhouette. I knew that gumpaste would be strong enough to hold up my semi-3D figures. I make my 2D/3D figures working from the back to the front. It will look a little funny as I go. The first thing I was super anxious to do was the Phantom’s face. His face came together super easily. I can’t say the same for Christine.

The way I approached my faces was inspired by Mimi Cafe Union — Sachiko Windbiel’s work is exquisite! I studied her posts on Instagram that show her step by steps. And when I saw that she was teaching a fondant figure class at the show, I jumped at the chance! Now that I took that class, I know exactly what I was doing wrong. I can’t wait to try figures like this again in the future with all my new knowledge.

Going on ….

CHRISTINE

Then I started to make Christine, because I couldn’t do too much with the Phantom because he is very much covered by Christine, who is front and center. I made sure to make a little bit of his elbow, which is behind her head.

Then I made her body shape. I made two small balls of fondant to give her breasts some depth, and covered it with more skin-color fondant. Then I used my small ball tool to give her neck and clavicles some definition.

Her left hand (our left) took just a couple of tries. I’m lucky because hands can prove to be difficult.

Below is my first attempt at her face. I almost was going to let this slide, because I don’t have a ton of time on my hands. But then I remembered that this cake is going to have a lot of eyes on it, so I should try again a different way.

Before I attempted a new face, I gave her make up to see if that would help. I used the original 1980s make up that Sarah Brightman wore, but I HATED IT.

Thankfully, it wasn’t all the way dried out, so I gently pulled her off and started again. I didn’t do much differently than the first time, but my result was so much better. I think she is sort of a Sarah/modern Christine hybrid.

I gave her much more subtle make up and very lightly painted her eyes, like a water color painting. Her cheeks and lips are petal dusts. Then I started her hair using big pieces of fondant and smaller pieces of fondant rolled into snakes.

Above is my original face with my new face. I am a big believer that if you have the time to fix your mistakes, you totally should! But at some point you have to stop or you will drive yourself crazy and you will never be done your project.

For the rest of the figures, I had to work from the back to the front. Phantom lures Christine into his lair right after a performance, so she has her costume on underneath her white dressing gown. The bodice is red with gold details, so I had to make that red bodice first.

I used my clay extruder to make a small amount of white cording for her gold bodice details. I would let it dry before painting it gold. You can also see my test piece of hair. I also made the Phantom’s collar and his mask.

MASK
For his mask, I actually had to drape fondant on his face and gently cut around, looking at the picture as a guide. I learned in my research that there have been a bunch of different Phantom masks over the years.

I don’t have pictures of the next few steps, because it was the week of my daughter’s project fair at school, so we were busy getting ready.

HAIR
For Christine’s hair, I used one of the small circles in my class extruder to make long, dark brown ropes. Then I wrapped them around skewers. Cake dowels would have been too thick. I let them partially dry so they would hold their shape, but still soft enough to go where I wanted them to.

DRESS
I made her right (our right) arm and hand out of skin color fondant. I also made sure to paint the gold details on her dress and let it dry. Then I slowly built up her dress, from the bottom to the top. The ruffle details and the bows were added last. The rope for her robe was a bit of a waste of time, since her hair covered most of it. I also made sure to make the Phantom’s left arm before I made HER left arm so it would be layered correctly. I know this is sort of confusing!

After her dress and his arm were done, I added some brown fondant for where her curls would be, to be both a guide, and to make her hair look more full.

APPLYING THE CURLS AND ADDING PHANTOM’S ARM
Bare with me here … I added the left part of her curls with the partially dried fondant hair. The next thing I did was add his left and ride forearms and hands. I very gently made his hand go into her hair. Then I tried my best to make his hands look natural and soft, and a bit strained, like in the photo. You can see at the very top of this photo that I had a reject hand or two.

Then I added the white for his white shirt and the dark blue for his suit jacket. I made his suit dark blue to contrast the background, which I had planned to be black.

Then I added the rest of her hair and was done this part of the project!

Here are all the photos together from start to finish: 

BACK OF THE CAKE
I really didn’t leave any part of this cake untouched. So I tried to come up with something different and engaging for the back of the cake. After looking at so many photos of the show, I was reminded of the Red Devil mask. In this part of the play, the Phantom crashes the masquerade ball while wearing this costume. He has a new musical that he has written, demanding that Christine be the main actress in his new play.

I actually did this before I made my figures because I knew that it would be “easy”. I thought it would make me feel better if I got something major finished first, so I would feel like I made a dent in my project.

I got a huge piece of white fondant and started to carve it out with my ball tools. I added extra white to the top for his expressive eyes.

After that, I filled his mouth and eyes with black fondant (not black paint) and added teeth. I thought about doing teeth the easy way, but it didn’t look right. The easy way being just a long rectangle of white fondant with little notches in it. Instead, I made individual teeth.

In this pic below, I’m checking out how it will look on the cake and am visualizing his hat taking up the top tier of the cake. I wanted the hat to be grand and taking up a lot of negative space. I wasn’t ready to put the cake all together yet, so I decided to dry the mask on my 8″ cake. I put the dummy on its side, propped it up,  and laid the mask on top of it. That really did the trick.

THE HAND CRANK MONKEY
An important part of the musical was the hand crank monkey. He is seen at the beginning of the musical during the auction and he is seen in the Phantom’s lair.

The first thing I did was take a big hunk of black fondant, cut it THICK, and used my X-Acto knife to cut a large rectangle. Then I cut a thick piece of red fondant the same size, placed them together, and rounded the sides to make it look like a plush little stool. Then I stuck a tooth pick down the middle for the monkey to sit on:

For the gold details around the black, I made some ropes with my clay extruder. I lined the entire top bottom, and sides, and made some simple curls at each corner. One actually broke off at some point and I had to fix it the day before the show. The detail on the front of the box is from a Wilton mold I had lying around. I wanted it to be simple but enough to suggest an ornate box. With something so small, there’s only so much you can do.

I don’t have many pictures of the next few parts. I was working on an order at the time, so I was in sort of a rush. After it had dried, I painted the details in gold. I made his body and made the look of hair with a veiner tool. Then I pushed it down on the tooth pick. I covered part of his torso with his red vest.

Then his arms and legs were next and were surprisingly easy. Then I made his symbols. As a bit of a cheater trick, I had them meet at the middle so they would support each other.

My kids asked me if he was the monkey from Toy Story 3. LOL. I made his face by making the basic shape. Then I added on more hair and his face from smaller pieces of fondant.

I supported his feet and arms to make sure they dried the way that I wanted it to. I did the entire monkey body in one shot. This was one of the easiest parts of the project.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Sometimes when you make cakes like this, you don’t know how it will all come together in the end. You make all your elements and hope they all fit together. I played with different arrangements. I had made 3 pretty roses using red fondant that I had left over from my daughter’s Elmo cake.

Monkey on the top…?

Monkey on the bottom?

Feeling inspired, I covered my cakes in black fondant, as well as my cake board. It is actually part of the rules that the cake board be covered in fondant. After I did that, I looked at it all together again without putting anything on permanently.

After everything was on, I scrapped the idea of hand cutting the PHANTOM logo. Not a lot of room.

RED DEATH’S RED HAT

To make the red death’s hat took a couple of tries. I thought that I could cut it accordingly, and use paper towels to prop it up. But that failed miserably.

So then I cut out a new hat and let it dry for half a day. Then it was nice and sturdy and held its own weight. Then I attached the mask.

To make the rim of the hat, I used a lace tool and gumpaste.

To make the feathers, I cut them by hand, added lines out with my veiner tool, and dried the on tin foil so they would have a rumpled look. When they were dry, I added them to the hat.

I made my tiers flush in the front for two reasons. It created a space in the back to build my feathers in. And it created a flat surface in the front to support my figures. I’ve done this in the past with actual cakes, so I knew this would work well.

When the hat was nice and dry, I painted the trim in gold. When the gold was dry, I aged the hat and made shadows on the skull with black petal dusts.

MORE ROSES
When I looked at my cake at this point, I decided that it needed more. I ran out to JoAnn fabrics with a 50% off coupon in hand, I bought more Wilton black fondant. I made more rose buds, and got to work making more roses. I started with 3, but had 7 in the end.

My roses were not made with a rose cutter, but an individual petal cutter. Then I used my Wilton calyx cutter to add that detail. What are roses without the green calyxes? I wanted to do this right, so I made sure to include them so that my roses looked complete.

FINISHING TOUCHES
At this point, after I added the roses, it looked complete. I added shading to all the characters, the roses, and the candles. I took out the original flames and made new flames so I could color the wicks with an Americolor black marker. I made sure to make the middle blue and orange like in real flames.

You can see my naked sides below. I knew I had to do something with the sides. When I was looking up Playbills, I stumbled upon Playbill.com. The website has a complete history of all the Playbills from the Majestic Theater. In case you don’t know, the Majestic Theater is the theater where the Phantom of the Opera is performed on Broadway. So, perfect! I thought, what better way to celebrate Broadway’s longest-running show with a brief history of its Playbills?

I ordered my prints from my favorite Etsy seller of edible images: EdiblePartyImages. I told her what I was up to and how big the Playbills should be. She arranged them for me on a 8″ x 11″ sheet of edible paper. I waited until the Thursday before the show to add the images because the instructions say they can fade. I wanted them to look their best.

I also wrote a small essay on my cake. My husband graciously printed and laminated it at his work. Here is what it said:

Phantom and Christine

I was inspired by the theme to make a cake based on Phantom of the Opera, because I have seen it several times and it’s one of my favorites. I made the Phantom and Christine in their famous scene together; they are based on the original Broadway stars, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman.

On the back of the cake is the Red Devil mask, which the Phantom wears when he interrupts the masquerade ball. On the top is the hand crank monkey, which is up for auction at the beginning of the musical (Lot 665), and is later seen in the Phantom’s lair when he kidnaps Christine.

The Playbills on the sides are from the Majestic Theater, dating the original 1988 Playbill through 2016. Left (from top to bottom): January 1988, January 1998, February 2012. Right (from top to bottom): January 26, 2013, June 2014, July 2016.

Almost everything on the cake is hand-made in fondant and gumpaste. The front details on the music box and the trim on the hat are molds. The Playbills on the side are edible images on fondant.

I also added a red trim with hot glue gun. As part of the rules for the cake show, you have to have “feet” under your cake. My husband told me a great idea to make feet: cut 1″ squares of my cake boards and glue three of them together. I made four for each “corner” (squares don’t have corners), as well as for the center. This was pretty easy and then my cake looked truly complete.

I took my pics (see the beginning of this post) and was ready for the cake show. Now that I have typed all this up, I remember how much work this all was. For such a little cake, it took hours upon hours of work. I’m so glad that I took this opportunity to show what I’m good at and to learn some new things in the process. It was such a fun cake to make and brought back so many memories … Memories of listening to Phantom in my bedroom in middle school, seeing it for the first time with my mom in Philly, and another time with my boyfriend (my to-be husband).

I can’t wait until next year and hope to make a lot of fun things between now and then.

Thank you all so much for your encouragement. It takes a village.

Nichole

P.S. My next article will be about the cake show itself, as well as my New York adventure!!!

This week I made a Star Wars Death Star cake that I have been planning for months! It feels like a cake that was 22 years in the making, since I have loved SW since its 1995 re-release. So, needless to say, I was really excited to make this cake!

This cake is a special surprise for a 40th birthday, from a wife to her husband. And, fun fact, Star Wars turns 40 in March! It’s been 40 years since A New Hope has been released.

She also specified that she wanted a gluten-free cake. After a lot of research, I decided on baking with Cup 4 Cup flour, one of the best gluten-free flours available. I made my usual yellow cake recipe (for the 6″ dome) and Hershey’s perfectly chocolate cake recipe, except with Cup 4 Cup and with almond milk instead of cow’s milk. And they turned out great! For the dome, I used the classic Wilton ball pan.

While making this cake, I came up with a way to make the Death Star that is SO EASY that almost anybody could do it! I’ll also show you how I made the galaxy cake, though I won’t go too much into that. You can learn more about that technique in the Crafty class called The Perfect Birthday Cake.

After letting the cakes soak in a vanilla simple syrup, I crumb coated both of my cakes. For the 8″ cake, I covered it a little bit more than a usual crumb coat. I have been wanting to try this method for a while. It calls for a regular covering of vanilla icing then a thin layer of black.

Something I changed from the tutorial: I let my vanilla coating of buttercream  really get firm and cold in the refrigerator so it would be easier to cover it with the black. So here it is chilled and ready to go:

To reduce the amount of black I would have to use, I covered my cake with a number 12 tip. For this, I set aside about 2.5 cups and dyed it black.

Then I smoothed it with my spatula.

And smoothed it some more with my Ateco metal scraper.

To make it look more like a galaxy cake, I decided to add some Americolor electric blue and electric pink to the cake and smooth it out.

Ta-da! What a fun effect to make. Then I smoothed it out with my Viva paper towels and moved onto the Death Star.

To make the Death Star, I decided the best way to make it would be to decorate it as two separate halves. I got a nice, sharp edge by doing it this way, too. I figured that if I did it this way, I would easily get a nice equator like on the actual Death Star.

I dyed the remainder of the gray fondant dark grey for the details. At first, when I was making this, I was going to cut out pieces individually.

After about forty minutes of doing this, and being unsatisfied with my results, a light bulb went off to streamline the process!

I pulled off my work and started over.

I rolled out my fondant and cut out a strip about an inch and a quarter wide (for the middle section). Then I wrapped it around the cake and smoothed it.

Then, after that, I got my clean X-Acto knife and made small vertical cuts for the space in between each section. I repeated this for the bottom part, which I cut to be about a bit more than a half-inch wide. I really just eye balled it. Then I made the cuts to be even with the cuts above it.

To make this even better and neater, use a ribbon cutter for the strips.

Another fun fact: after doing tons of research on the Death Star, I realized that every picture on Google images is different than the others. No two Death Stars are alike!

To do the top, I decided to use a circle cutter and then to cut out the middle. I wasn’t going to put a circle on the middle until after the center dowel rod was in.

Then I made my cuts to be even with the middle section of the space ship.

I forgot to add that to make the tractor beam (below), I used circles of various sizes and added the line details with a flat sided tool. I made the light circles with a number 5 piping tip.

Then I did the same on the bottom.

I added my 8″ cake to my 12″ black fondant-covered cake board. Then I cut a 4″ cake board down to size and added it to the bottom of the Death Star. Then I cut three dowel rods and put them in the middle of my 8″ cake. I flipped over the bottom hemisphere and put it on the cake.

Then I added some icing for a filling and added the top of the Death Star. Then I added a center dowel rod.

After that, I covered the top with a circle. Then I dusted the edges of the sections with black edible dust and started to add little lights (sprinkles) with a dab of water. This took forever! After those were added, I added little stars with a number 3 piping tip. Then added the rest of my words (hand-cut from a Jedi font) and the black ribbon along the bottom.

Here’s how it turned out!

 And there you have it, my first and probably only gluten-free Star Wars cake. I hope that Wade loves it!