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! :)
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! :)
Visit Our Store »
Go Pro Today »
Thanks so much for the info! by the way your cake is absolutely amazing! your awesome! ok, ok... a few questions though... do you have the measurements for the ears, how big the eyes should be etc? Also how many people did your yoda head feed?
thank you again!
Thank you!!!
The ears were about 6 inches long. I don't have the measurements for the eyes, as I didn't measure anything, just did it all by eye, looking at my reference pics as I went. But, each eye, from corner or eye, including eyelids, looks to be (from my pictures because I cannot remember from 2 years ago) about 1/3 the length of an ear so maybe go with 2"? Or if you are making the whole thing larger or smaller, go with a 1/3 the length of one of the ears.
This size fed 8-10 of my friends, not including the ears, which were rice cereal treats, which my best friend and I claimed. :)
Your welcome and thank you again!
Here it is!
Thank you for the inspiration and your help!!!!
I use the marshmallow fondant recipe located here:
http://www.wilton.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=137541&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=
I've loved it and it is easy and inexpensive.
And thank you!
You have an amazing talent.
I must ask you how did you cover the head together with the ears with the fondant?
I can understand covering the head separately and the ears separately but I don't understand how you covered them together.... :)
I speak better in visuals so I made a little drawing of how I covered it together. I hope this makes sense! :)
Your cakes are awesome!
I want to try and make this cake too, I'll update when it's ready :)
i like the red vivrt1
very very niceEven got the bumpy head right!
... nope. No words. :D
I'm glad you included the photos of cutting the cake. I rarely get to see that, and it's something I've been interested in. I'm so interested in doing this, but I'm afraid my attempts would look nothing like this! (Or, come to think of it, nothing like what I was trying to make them look like, either!)
You're fabulous!! I want to see more of your cakes!
Before I made this first sculpted cake, the last time I sculpted a head, or much of anything, was back in 9th grade, in uh, 1988 or 1989, and it didn't look very good, lol! That was why I was so happy with how this cake out! Even though that was a long time ago I was thinking it would come out as bad as that head I sculpted back then.
I really enjoy cutting up the cakes and seeing all my friends and family enjoy them. :)
I jumped into this on a whim last year and I haven't regreted it! I think you should give it a try! There are a lot of videos online that show basic techniques and then I learned a lot from watching a lot of Ace of Cakes, Food Network Challenges, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Fabolous Cakes, Ultimate Cake Off and Cake Boss. I'm now taking cake classes at a local cake shop to learn more about making non-sculpted cakes and all the techniques, etc. It's a lot of fun!
I stick to other art projects that I can put down when I need to. But this... what you did is AMAZING!! :D Thanks for sharing... your cakes are amazing!