3d Dinosaur Birthday Cake

Step 4 The Skin

• Roll the fondant out 1/8 inch thick. Hand cut the fondant with a small knife some diamond shapes for the plates on the dinosaur's back. Detail the plates with a toothpick to give them a ribbed texture.
• Spread a thin layer of green frosting over the cake. This is called the crumb coat -- and for good reason, as much of the crumbs pull away and get mixed up in the frosting. Use a very light hand on the cut surfaces of cake. Did you use a cake mix instead of making one from scratch? Are you cursing now?
• Tip: crumb coat one half. Have a partner start piping with the star tip while you finish crumb coating the other half.
• Use a star tip to pipe on green frosting, then blend in blue for an accent.
• Stick fondant diamond plates into back. If the frosting does not hold the plates well, stick a toothpick into the plate then stick it into the cake.

Comments

[Joyousbaker]

I used toblerone chocolate pieces for my dinosaur scales! Awesome!

[sagearbor]

I assuming the cool green coat effect basically came down to a lot of piping that was well done. Ill try sometime but dont doubt the dinasour skin will be much less detailed due to my laziness. How long do you guys spend on the piping?

[thetotspot]

hi, i can not get the head to stay on. how did you get that to work out??

[allesat]

Did a shape cake before - you can always freeze to avoid some crumb spreading or with the last one I did, melt the frosting in the micro for 15-30 sec and pour over cake for nice starter layer to the frosting. Works out to be a little thinner then spreading and a lot easier for a beginner LOVE THIS CAKE - THANKS FOR SHARING

[bel82b]

I can see why you need to make the cake from scratch. I thought I'd make a packet mud cake thinking it would be denser than a normal chocolate sponge. How wrong I was!! The crumb coating looks nothing like that! Doesn't matter though. The cake's looking good so far. Still a working progress...

[watermelonhead]

im also thinking that you could melt colored white chocolate and make shapes from that, because i really dont like fondant...