Shamrock Baptism Cake

This was a commission from a friend of mine whose eight-year-old son was getting baptized. When she first approached me about making a baptism cake, I asked what sort of things her son likes. When she told me, my mind was expecting, "He really loves legos." But that's not what she said. She said, "He really loves leprechans." Wow. Leprechans. I didn't see that coming.

Despite the surprise, we quickly came up with a few ideas. My friend had seen the Armor of God Baptism Cake I made last October (see previous blog post) and wanted a Book of Mormon on the top of the cake, so I had another chance to improve my cake book techniques.

She loves the symbolism of being clean after baptism, so she wanted white cake with vanilla frosting. Covered in white fondant with white decorations on the outside. Then a dark green Book of Mormon on the top. I suggested putting her son's name on the spine. Where are the leprechans? Two things refer back to his love of leprechans. The white on white decorations are tiny shamrocks. And the cake has a green shamrock surprise inside. See my post on how to make a surprise inside cake to see that step.

Another thing I wanted to do was decorate the cake drum. They come in silver and mine looked a touch beat up, so I decided to decorate it. I started out with gold crafting contact paper.

 Then I added crafting tape in white and gold around the edge.

 I loved how the gold looked, but crafting paper isn't exactly food safe, so I covered it in plastic wrap to protect the cake from the paper.

 Then I filled and stacked my two surprise inside layers.

 I didn't like how dark the carmelization looked, so I decided to trim it.

 Then I crumb coated the cake.

 While that's chilling, I decided to prepare my 6 inch square cake to become the book.

 I trimmed off the edges and cut off one side to make it into a rectangle.

Then I crumb coated it.

 I chilled the book piece and frosted the 10 inch round and chilled it again.

 I covered the 10 inch round in white fondant. Once again, I cut it too short. What else is new? So I patched a bit on the sides.

 I cut out tiny shamrocks out of white fondant with a tiny cookie cutter and used them to surround the bottom.

 The fondant patches left some seams, so I used some extra tiny shamrocks to help hide the seams.

 Now the 10 inch round is finished. It's time to make the book. I didn't have dark green fondant, so I took some grass green fondant and mixed it with a bit of black fondant.

 The color was exactly what I wanted. Kind of an evergreen or forest green. The kind of green you get when you dye leather green.

 I rolled it out and measured the piece I needed. I cut the piece about half an inch longer than I thought I needed in both directions, but not more than that.

 After I spent all that time cutting the book cover, I realized that I forgot a step, so I set my green fondant aside and got out the white again. Because a book has pages, so I rolled a thin strip of white and trimmed one side to be flat.

 I wrapped the white around 3 sides of my book cake. By the way, I'm now working on the cake on the bottom of my springform pan. If I tried to do this on the cake itself, I would get green fondant traces all over my beautiful white fondant. Then I trimmed the white fondant to height with a sharp knife.

 Then I put the piece of green fondant on the top of the book and flipped it over directly onto my turntable to trim off the excess green fondant.

 I used a straw to help me get a consistent distance from the white pages. I trimmed it with a sharp knife and rounded the corners.

 Then I flipped the book back over and used the leftover green fondant to make the bottom cover. I used some edible glue and a paintbrush around the bottom and pushed the fondant up to the book.

 I then trimmed it using the same straw as before as well as rounding off the corners again. I also used the blade of my knife to tuck any stray fondant under the edge of the book.

 I carefully placed the book onto the white cake. I did not use dowels this time because the book isn't that big or heavy. The cake should be able to hold it up without support.

 The words I made out of yellow fondant in a letter pressform. But I really wanted to have gold letters. So I took some gold luster dust and added a few drops of clear alcohol to make a paint. I painted my letters with a paintbrush using two coats letting them dry in between. I did this several days beforehand to let them dry. I placed the letters on the book using tweezers and edible glue. I lined them up using a ruler.

 I placed the letters for the boy's name on the spine using that handy straw again as a spacer and to get the letters straight.

I think it turned out really beautiful.

 A view of the inside.