R2D2

I was asked to do a Star Wars themed cake for 3 young boys that celebrate their birthdays together every year.  Can you imagine the excitement from my husband when he heard we would be doing another "man cake?"  We decided on R2D2. 

The head was formed in a Pyrex bowl and is actually made out of rice crispy treats.  Cake would have probably been cheaper - hind sight.  As I side note, I recently saw on a cake decorating show, where they formed something out of rice crispy treats and then covered it in melted chocolate.  They then came back after it cooled and hardened and scraped it with a razor blade until it was smooth.  This way, the fondant would lay really smooth.  Kind of liked the idea, haven't tried it yet.  Anyway, the body is a stack of 5 6" round cakes (cardboard and dowels halfway).  The legs (is that what I would call those? - some Star Wars fans may be cringing at my terminology) are also rice crispy.  We pressed the rice crispy treats together as hard as we could and then cut out the shape.  In the past, I've always tried to shape it, but with the crisp edges I needed for the legs here it was a great idea to cut. 

The entire thing was covered in white fondant.  We painted on the silver using silver luster dust and lemon extract.  Then it was details, details, details!  My husband had printed out a few photos that we tried to match as closely as we could.  He did the math to determine the size everything needed to be.  I think he turned out great!

We placed him atop a wooden block covered in black fondant (also painted - with food coloring and lemon extract - easier than coloring white fondant black) to raise his body so that it would appear that he was supported by the legs.  I believe this was the only problem we ran into while making this cake.  We actually cut the block size to big, covered it in fondant and when we were ready to place the cake on top we realized that it was wrong.  A relatively easy fix.  The base is a piece of 1/2" thick plexi glass.  My brother in law made me several different sizes and shapes - they are a very unique cake board, and absolutely perfect for this particular cake.

It's hard to tell here, but on the back we did indentations of the panels rather than adding more fondant to this guy.

We were thrilled with our final product here!  It was a lot of fun to work with my husband again on something that I enjoy doing so much.