Yoda Head Cake

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! :)