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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Swamp Monster Cake

Every year, the elementary school PTO holds an Ice Cream Social to coincide with school budget voting day.  It's a good way to ensure lots of traffic to the polling station held across the street at the middle school.  The Ice Cream Social is a lot of fun for the kids and a great fundraiser for the PTO.  We have plenty of carnival type games, inflatables, a cake walk, and of course ice cream.  Never heard of a cake walk?  Here's how it works:  kids hand over a ticket to walk around a circle of numbers, when the music stops they jump on a number, a number is pulled out of a hat(or box) and whoever's number is pulled wins a cake.  They get to choose from 30-40 cakes.  When WD was in elementary school my cake was the first one grabbed every year from K-4th grade.  5th grade it was the 2nd.  I have a reputation to uphold so I usually spend a good deal of time in cake planning.  This year, I made a swamp monster.
swamp monster

The swamp monster was a huge hit with the boys, and got several "oohs" as the kids checked out the cake tables.  Here's how I made it.  I started by greasing and flouring a large pyrex bowl.
swamp monster1

I used my basic yellow cake mix recipe that I used in my Strawberry Jello Poke Cake.  I added one pkg of Lime Green Jello mix and 1/2 a cup of rainbow sprinkles, because I wanted the cake to be colorful when cut.
swamp monster2

I baked this at 300 for about an hour and 20 minutes.  You'll want to make sure that it's baked all the way through and that a skewer test comes out clean when you pull it out of the oven.  I ran a plastic knife around the edge of the cake,
swamp monster3

and turned it out onto a rack to cool completely.
swamp monster4

I always bake any cakes that will be decorated the day prior to decorating, because it helps me to keep from getting all frantic about a deadline.  I also make my fondant and color it ahead of time.  These are the colors I used.
icing colors

I put the bulk of it in the frig in ziplock baggies divided up by color.  For this cake, I made my "victim" ahead too.  This gave it ample drying time, so that it wouldn't be floppy when I put the cake together.
swamp monster13

The morning of the Ice Cream Social, I put the cake together.  I started by cutting out a mouth for the swamp monster.
swamp monster5

I then frosted the entire cake with a thin layer of buttercream frosting.
swamp monster7

I rolled out some dark grey fondant for the mouth and placed it on the cake.  The frosting acts as glue for the fondant.  I went with dark grey instead of black, because the black food color doesn't taste very good if you use too much of it.
swamp monster8

I used the cut cake scraps to make cake balls for the swamp monster's eyes.  I mashed the scraps together with a spoonful of frosting, then shaped the mixture into balls.
swamp monster6

I rolled out green fondant for the body of the monster, layed it on top, and cut away the excess with scissors at the mouth and a pizza roller at the bottom edge.  I turned the cut edge under to create a lip around the mouth, covered the cake balls with white fondant, and added more green fondant hoods for the eyes.
swamp monster9

I rolled out tentacles, and used all the leftover fondant to cover the cake board.  I wasn't concerned about the mix of colors, because it's a swamp.
swamp monster10

I carefully moved the cake over onto the covered cake board for finishing.  I wrapped the victim in a tentacle and attached it to the cake.  I then attached the rest of the tentacles, and covered the monster in spots.  Notice the aluminum foil.  Any unsupported bits of fondant will get all floppy and fall over.  The foil is just there long enough for the fondant to stiffen up.  (an hour or more depending on your home's humidity level.)
swamp monster11

After a couple of hours I felt it was safe to remove the foil, and brush off any excess powdered sugar with a pastry brush.  I finished the cake with some green decorating gel around the monster.  The perfect slimy finish to this cake.
swamp monster12

Thanks for popping in and baking with me.  I'm linking this to Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff.
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25 comments:

  1. WOW that would be a huge hit with the boys. How cute! I bet it tasted good too!

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  2. That is such a fun and gross cake! I've never tried fondant before, but seeing this make me want to:)

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  3. Oh my goodness this cake is hilarious! I absolutely love it! Great job!

    Emily
    Deviantly Domesticated Team
    http://stephaniehillberry.com

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  4. This is awesome! Hope you can link it up to my Sweet Treats Party today!!

    Ashton
    www.somethingswanky.com

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  5. That is so creative! 3 eyes, spots, sooo cute, you are super Mom! You should enter that in some contest!

    Carol

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  6. You are unbelievable. Do you ever sleep?

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  7. so fun!!! i love this cake!!! my nephew would adore this :) foudn you over at thrilling thursday, come by for a visit sometime

    Jackie
    http://jaclyndesigns.blogspot.com/

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  8. very interesting..kinda horror..hehe

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  9. That is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I never would've thought to bake a cake in a pyrex bowl! Found you @ Paisley Passions.

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  10. That is adorable and I bet your boys LOVED it!!! You are really good! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog too! XO, Pinky

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  11. So very creative and I'm sure it was very well loved and eaten fast by lots of little monsters.
    Ruthie

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  12. So funny and creative. I've never used fondant. Does it taste good, or just something best peeled away?

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  13. This is awesome! I can see why your cakes are in such high demand. What a fun creation - and I also would never had thought to bake a cake in a round pyrex bowl.
    And thanks for your sweet comment on my monopoly bucket :)
    I'm a new follower for sure!

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  14. Thanks for linking up today!! Hope to see you next week :)
    Ashton
    www.somethingswanky.com

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  15. Wow that is such an awesome cake! And simple to construct too, to a certain degree! :)

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  16. That is so cool! My son would think that was the most awesome cake ever. You are one creative gal and we are so glad you shared this with us at Inspiration Friday this week! :-)
    Vanessa

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  17. This cake is AWESOME! You are so creative...I ♥ it!! PS--growing up in North Dakota we always had a Cake Walk at my Elementary School Fun Night each year. We live in Vegas now, and my daughters Elementary school does the same thing. Very cool I think!

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  18. Great job on your monster cake!

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  19. You'll be featured tonight at Creative Juice...

    Thanks for sharing this. Hope to see you back again this week!

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  20. Wow, great tutorial! It turned out wonderful.

    Thanks for linking up with Sweet Tooth Friday. I hope to see you again this week.

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  21. This is really gorgeous! I love your idea and the way it looks. So scary and funny at the same time :) Perfect masterpiece!

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  22. I did it--- I made a dome cake after seeing this awesome one. I posted about it yesterday and made sure to link back to this post and give full credit. Thanks for the inspiration!

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