Elephant Baby Shower Cake
It started with an email asking for an elephant baby shower cake. Elephant baby shower cakes must be popular right now, because the prior evening I received a text message also asking about an elephant baby shower cake! Naturally I assumed it was for the same shower and a different person was asking, but it was for two different parties. As with many cakes, the hostess wanted it to be a replica of an image that she sent me. It would be a different size based on the guest count, but we would keep the spirit of the cake intact. I haven't always loved replicating cakes from a picture in the past. However, copying a cake without any directions makes for its own little puzzle. It is a fun challenge and it is great fun to watch all the pieces come together. If you would like to make your own elephant baby shower cake, I've written up the directions along with pictures to follow. You can change the colors, the size etc, but this will give you the gist for how to make it.
Elephant
Color gum paste a pale blue color and then form it into an elephant shape based on the picture. Make the trunk from gum paste and then attach it to the elephant body with a toothpick and a little royal icing. Using a heart cutter, cut out a little heart for his side and use edible marker to mark his eye. For the balloons, roll out gray gum paste and insert jewelry wire with a little bit of royal icing to affix them. The balloons and trunk are the trickiest part of this project. The balloons may want to spin on their wires. This is what happened when I made them, so I used royal icing to stop the spinning. When you finish the elephant, cut out the gray base with a scalloped edge cookie cutter. Allow the elephant to dry. You may need to prop up his trunk so that it doesn't slip down as it is drying. I was so busy forming the elephant that I didn't take pictures of this part of the process!
Make the Bow
The bow is made from gray and pale blue gum paste. Roll out the gray paste and then roll the blue out and lay it on top of the gray. Cut into multiple ribbons to make the bow.
Now, take the ribbon and form two loops for your bow. You'll also want to form a center loop for the big loops to fit into. Trim the edges of the two bow loops to fit nicely into the center loop.
Use cake pans as a mold for the bow to dry. This bow will later attach to the cake with Royal Icing.
Cover the cakes with fondant. Use a cake pan or parchment sheet to mark the placement of your top cake. Roll out a blue gum paste ribbon and affix it to the bottom cake with Royal Icing.
Now you can tier your cake. I chose to tier the cakes before adding the top cake’s rick rack ribbon. This way, the ribbon wouldn’t inadvertently shift while tiering.
Make the Rick Rack Pattern
Begin making the rick rack for the top tier. The original cake was most surely made using the Wilton Fabric and Fondant Ribbon mold. However, I didn't have enough lead time to order this, so I made my own. If you are making this cake, I do recommend that you order it. It isn't very expensive and will save you over an hour of hand cutting. But, it is also totally possible to hand cut. I found a pattern that I liked, printed it in landscape, cut it out and then rolled gum paste, hand cut and placed the ribbon. I repeated these steps until the top cake of the Elephant Baby Shower cake was wrapped! Use royal icing to affix each piece of ribbon to the top cake.
Now, add the writing you'd like to add to your front plaque. Then place your bow using Royal Icing to make sure that it is firmly attached. Then add your elephant, also affixing with Royal Icing. And there you have it: a lovely Elephant Baby Shower cake!
