Superhero Cake

Happy Birthday to Henry and Jack!!

Jack, our nephew, turned one on Monday. Henry, another nephew, will turn 2 in a couple of weeks. We had the privilege of being a part of a joint party with both boys and the whole family. It was a wonderful, fun, busy weekend with the Streepeys! I had the fun of making the birthday cake! I decided to go with superheroes because I knew both boys would appreciate the theme (if they were aware of it at all!) and it seemed like it would be fun to do. Also, because that's what Will wanted! :)

Here are views of each side of the cake.

For the design, I covered the cake in white fondant, then divided the sides into three parts. The three sections were each a panel featuring the logo of one superhero and the panels were separated by just under an inch of white space. I chose Superman, Spiderman, and Captain America because the colors of the three go together really well, they were relatively easy to do in panel form, and because that's what Will wanted. (Do you sense a theme here? Will plays a big role in my decorating sometimes!)

I wanted to keep the overall design and cake simple because it needed to travel 4 1/2 hours to get to the party in one piece, but it did need a little pop of something so I added some stars shooting out of the top of the cake. Each birthday boy has a star with his initial on it. The stars are suspended on floral wire (16 gauge for strength) and held into the cake with a drinking straw so that the non-food-safe wires would not touch any part of the cake itself. Rule number one of caking: never poison your guests! :)

The Captain America panel is my favorite. I cut rings out of fondant and a star for the middle, then pieced them together like a puzzle. The background is marbled fondant (red and blue kneaded together). I just really love the look of this one!

For Superman and Spiderman, I printed the logos on the computer, then traced the design onto waxed paper. I then poked holes along the edges of the design with a toothpick so that little bumps would form on the underside. I then placed the waxed paper with the little bumps onto my rolled-out fondant and gently pressed so that the bumps I made with the toothpick would form the outline of the design on the fondant. I then cut the design out with an exacto knife. I did this in two stages - once with only the outline of the design poked through, then a second round with the center design poked through. I then layered the fondant pieces onto the background panel on the cake. Whew! Does that all make sense? I hope so!

The spider gave me the most trouble because of all the little points and intricate cutting. I had a really hard time getting a clean cut and smoothing the edges. I was also going to do a web surrounding the Spiderman logo, but could not get my extruder and fondant to cooperate with that. The "web" just kept falling apart, so I decided to not use it. I do think this makes the Spiderman logo match the others a little better, though, since the others do not have anything surrounding the center logo.

And I probably should apologize for my photos on this one. I got lazy and didn't do the lighting set-up. I think you can still get the basic idea though! I promise I will be more on my game again for the next one! :)

The cake itself is vanilla bean layered with chocolate filled with raspberry preserves and raspberry swiss meringue buttercream. The entire cake was covered with raspberry white chocolate ganache and then with fondant. The overall result was so delicious! This is definitely one of my favorite combinations!

I hope you enjoyed this one! Thanks for stopping by!