Tuesday, January 27, 2009

How To Make An Alligator Cake

Bug has known for quite some time now that his birthday was in January. Fortunately, he also knew that January came after December and after Christmas.

Unfortunately, his birthday is towards the end of the month, so for a few weeks we had to endure "Is it my birthday YET? It's January! I should be turning four!"

About two weeks before his birthday, we asked him what kind of cake he wanted. The first thing out of his mouth? "Alligator cake mommy!" Not only that, he wanted CHOCOLATE alligator cake.

Huh.

All I have to say is - thank heavens for the Internet!! Turns out that this particular endeavor isn't so hard.

I baked 2 boxes of cake mixes (Duncan Hines devil's food in case you were curious); one in a regular 9x13 rectangular pan, and one in a fluted pan (bundt pan, but not a 'real' bundt pan). Oh, and I also baked lots of cupcakes for Bug to take to school; 6 of them were used for the legs & eyes.

I cut the rectangle into a Christmas-tree like shape (the mouth is the top of the 'tree'), and the bundt cake into thirds. With the leftovers from the rectangle, I added a 2nd layer to the head, and used a bunch of pieces to assemble a tail.



Kind of ugly, isn't it? Very uneven! This is where frosting is your friend. After whipping up a batch, I used it to glue things together & level things out.



Once I'd finished that, I tinted the rest of the icing green (light green mama! dark green alligators are BAD gators! very scary!), I used my icing squirter (how do you like my use of technical jargon) to squirt the stars. Honestly, that's the quickest part of the whole endeavor!

Here's a slightly better overhead shot of him:



I used bamboo skewers (cut into thirds) to anchor the eyes to the cake at the proper angle. The spikes down his back (and the eyeballs) are some generic gummy fish. Because there's nothing like flavored plastic to complete a cake! The teeth & claws are mini-marshmallows. Turns out that if you cut them in half diagonally, they naturally have that 'sharp' point.



And we end with a shot of Bug not-so-patiently waiting for his party to start so he can eat his new friend.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow great cake. I enjoyed your blog.

The Doodle Family (As Authored by Kimberley) said...

You do such an amazing job with cake. You just may have a side business there!

Lou said...

That is FANTASTIC! I want one for my birthday! x

Miss Marian said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

Marian's comment reposted to remove real names:

I love it. It is just too cute and it's BIG! Happy belated birthday to Bug!

. said...

That is the coolest cake in the world! EVER!! I so want one of those :)

xMx

obs_lady said...

Jaime this is way cool. I love the idea. I just posted this link for a friend of mine and can't wait to see what she makes. Great idea and thanks a million for the step by step instuctions with photos.

Anonymous said...

My 6 yr old to be has requested a croc cake next week for his birthday, and now after reading your blog and pics, it just may be doable! Thanks again!