Finally, the dragon cake post!

Even though I had already posted a few pictures in my Facebook page, I still hadn't written the whole story of my Dragon Cake. It all started like three or four months ago when my oldest son started to ask for a dragon cake for his 5th birthday. Yes, that's right, 3 or 4 months... he's obsessed with his birthday and I'm pretty sure he has a "cake theme list" until his 80th birthday somewhere ;)

 

Well, I showed him lots of different ideas with fondant dragons, but he wasn't sold. He really wanted a carved dragon cake, a 3D dragon-shaped cake. I had never ever done a carved cake, but I decided it was a good opportunity to give it a try. Of course, about 2 weeks before his birthday he suddenly decided he wanted Angry Birds for his party at home *eyeroll*, but he still wanted the dragon for his small celebration at school, so it was all good... I got double amount of work this year, but to tell you the truth I enjoy making cakes for my children as much as they like seeing them when they are ready. Angry Birds post will be for another day, though!

Besides the carved dragon issue, there is one other additional complication, and it's that my children are extremely allergic to artificial dyes. They get crazy, like climbing-on-the-walls-monkeys-on-crack crazy, so I would rather stab myself in the eye than give it to them. Because of this, I wanted to make the cake using something with nice color and flavor, but that they wouldn't need to "peel off" the cake to eat. I decided to give modeling chocolate a try - I had a book after all! I opted for a dark brown body, so I could use dark chocolate and no dyes, and the details I made using white chocolate tinted with vegetable-based dyes. Veggie-dyes are not as strong as artificial ones, and fade faster, but my kids can eat them without going nuts.

To make the dragon, at at request of the birthday boy, I made a 10 inches vanilla cake and a 9 inches chocolate cake. I filled both with cream cheese chocolate mousse, and then I cut them, glued them (with additional mousse), shaped them, and carved them until I got more or less a dragon shape. I have to admit that it looked anything like a dragon at that point! I crumb coated all of it and stuck it in the fridge, praying for a miracle...

A couple of hours later, I started cutting dragon scales one by one using my rose petal cutter. It took FOREVER, but I did it! I glued them one by one to the tail, body, head, and legs, and then I added eyes, and other details made out of white modeling chocolate tinted yellowish-green. I also added some "fire" at the request of birthday boy - that one I made by tinting white modeling chocolate red and yellow, also with veggie dyes.

I moved the heaviest cake on Earth (almost) to a cake board already covered with green fondant, and I added additional details such as "grass" (tinted coconut), flowers, and letters. It got a big grin, a "wow!!" and thumbs up from the birthday boy, so that's what really matters. Even if I needed a trip to the chiro after all the scale cutting and gluing ;)

That was the cake we brought to his school during his birthday week to celebrate with his classmates and teachers. I hope you enjoy reading the story!

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