Bacon Cake

Samara had a milestone birthday recently and I didn't know what to get her. Gift choices are limited here in Dillingham, so I had to be creative. Anthony and I were sitting around trying to think of something funny and something Samara would like when I had a moment of brilliance. A bacon cake! I can make fondant! I can make cake! And so I made it happen.

I won't bore you with the actual cake part. I baked a butter cake and it was fine. Nothing too special, but tasted good. The important part of this cake is the decorations. First off I had to cut the cake so it resembled bacon. Here is the wavy sort of cut I did to try and get the bacon look.

I then had to color the fondant. This was a feat! The pink was easy, the red/brown color was not. I was struggling with the stickiness of the fondant and needing to add more color and powdered sugar. It was a mess and looked like I had killed someone on my kitchen counter. I eventually got it to the shade I liked.

I then had to figure out how to get the marbled bacon look. I decided to make "snakes" out of the fondant (it really is like play dough) and stick them together. I then rolled it out so it would be all smooshed together. (That's a real technical cake decorating term.) Because I had used so much food coloring my fondant was sticky, which posed some problems. Mostly the fondant sticking to the parchment paper I was using to transport it from the counter to the cake. Overall, though, I was happy with how it turned out. Samara thought it was funny and hopefully one of her more memorable birthday cakes.