I'm an artist who recently has gotten into cake decorating and have fallen in love with it! I'm currently taking the beginner cake decorating classes and hoping to land a job at a bakery. I decided to try making my first sculpted cake and chose Yoda as the subject. It was so much fun and I've found my passion! This is a red velvet cake (with rice krispie treats for the ears) covered in fondant. i tried to get as much detail as I could. I wanted to finish the bust with fondant clothing over the neck area and covering the pan and plate but I ran out of time and fondant. Yoda was very yummy! Everyone said it was sad to cut into him, but we went to the dark side that night. :) Hopefully I will have time soon to continue the Star Wars theme with another sculpted cake.

I was so into making this cake that I forgot to take more photos while I was making it, but here's the written story of how I made the cake.

1. First I printed out lots of reference photos of Yoda from as many different angles as I could find.

2. Then I baked the cakes. I used 2 box mixes of red velvet cake, altering/adding-to each mix to make the cake stronger so it would hold up to the stacking and carving and fondant better. I made four 8 inch rounds. Once they were cooled I stacked them up, with white buttercream icing in between the layers. I then put the stacked cake into the freezer for a while so that it would be easier to carve (I was hoping, as I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, just going off what I see on different cake shows and challenges and from online videos and forums.)

3. While the cake was in the freezer I made the Rice Krispie treats and then molded each ear around some take-out chopsticks (was working with what I had, hadn't thought about their support and it was around midnight.)

4. Once the cake was about half-frozen, I lay out my reference photos and just started carving out the basic shape with a knife. I scooped out some cake on the sides the same size around as the base of the ears so that they would be inset a little into the cake and help hold them up.

5. Once the carving was done and I had the ears on, I crumb coated it with vanilla buttercream. There's a couple photos I had taken of it after the crumb coating.

6. Then I made the fondant (marshmallow fondant) and covered the cake. The eyes and most of the nose are fondant. For the eyes I added those separate. First the white oval, then made and attached the eyelids. I used clay sculpting/carving tools for all the details, wrinkles, etc.

7. Then the last thing was the hand painting. I mixed up about 6 different colors (different hues of greens and browns and grays) using vodka and the Wilton gel colors. They were like watery watercolors. I speckled the whole head in several hues for a faint mottled look. I painted subtle shades in all the recesses and with a fine brush in some of the wrinkles, and then darker color in the ears. I used a tiny brush to paint the eyes with the gel food colors mixed with only a drop or two of vodka.

And that's how I did it! :)