3D Horse Cake - June 2010

I made this horse cake for my daughter, Cara's, 11th birthday.

  

The body and neck of the horse are made up of cakes baked in a 9"x 13" pan, a 7" x 11" pan - I think (those two mainly made up the body), a medium-sized glass measuring cup (which mainly made up the neck), and then various scraps or parts of another cake used to fill in or add to spots here and there. 
After I got the main part of the body and neck assembled I added the head on with skewers.  The head is actually a hollow paper mache type craft egg that I had on hand (the same as used in my Spider-Man cake).  I covered it with foil.  You could, of course, use rice krispy treats for the head, a lot of people do, and you may get a better shape that way.  I wanted to fill out the head/face with some fondant or something to make it more of a realistic shape, but unfortunately I didn't have the time.  Once the head was on I carved the cake (and added on the scraps) to make the shape that I wanted.  Then I crumb coated the body and the neck and let the icing set.

The legs, tail, and the ears were made using foil wrapped around plastic wrap (just to not have to use so much foil).  As I mentioned with the head you could, of course, use rice krispy treats, modeling chocolate, etc. for any of the non-edible parts that I made if you’re comfortable with that medium or want to try it.

After I got the legs and tail in the position I wanted them, I iced over the whole cake with chocolate buttercream.  Then once the whole cake was iced I went over it with a hot knife (by dipping it in hot water) to smooth the icing out some.

 The tail and mane were piped on using a grass tip with chocolate buttercream tinted black.  Then I added details on for the hooves and face.

Cara really loved her cake!  Yippee!  :)

Click here to see a slideshow of the progression of making this cake.

(I created my animated name at this site.)