Noah's Ark Cake

 A friend of mine has guessed that I had made a Noah's ark cake for months. So, I figured I finally should. So, here we go!

I'm using two 6-inch layers and two 4-inch layers of red velvet cake. As you can see, this cake isn't in the best condition. One of the 4-inch layers had a pretty significant corner pressed into it and one of the 6-inch layers had some pretty bad cracks.

Ordinarily, I would make cream cheese frosting to go with red velvet cake, but I knew I was making this for a friend who was lactose intolerant, so I made Swiss meringue buttercream instead.
Now, you may think that some of my cake layers aren't usable, but I used all of them. The 4-inch layer with the dent in it, I filled in with buttercream. Then put it down upside down. Problem solved.

Then I put the intact 6-inch layer on top of the first 4-inch layer.
I reassembled the cracked 6-inch layer on top.

Then I topped it with a layer of 4-inch cake.

I began by sculpting the cake by trimming the top layer into a semi-rectangular shape.
Then I mirrored the shape of the top layer in the rest of the layers.
I sculpted the bottom 3 layers of cake into a rough boat shape.
I also tapered the ends down to a rough point.
Then I frosted the cake.

Then I cleaned up the cake board.

Then I rolled out a thick strip of brown fondant.
I wrapped it around the bottom of the boat and trimmed it to the top.
Then I rolled out more brown fondant and covered the top with it. I smoothed it onto the top.
Then I added some wood texture into the brown fondant with some sculpting tools.
I added a snake of brown fondant to the slight gap between the pieces of fondant. Then I sculpted a rough dove shape with white fondant and placed it on top of the ark.

I modeled a couple of elephants out of gray fondant.

And placed them on the ark. I had to redo the trunk of one of the elephants.
Then I modeled a couple of giraffes and used a piece of dry spaghetti to stabilize the neck.
Then I stuck them into the cake.
I also modeled a couple of pigs.
And a couple of hippos. I was trying to choose animals that I could make out of colors that contrasted with the brown ark. So, no monkeys.
I made a couple of snakes, though, draping over the top of the ark.

I colored some buttercream blue.

And decorated the cake board with the blue buttercream to look like water.
So, to be honest, I pictured it a bit different.
But this is a cute result.
It's a bit cartoony and sweet.
Very child appropriate.








Watch us make this Noah's ark on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/8VKjG0myVbY

Schaut zu wie wir diese Arche Noah auf YouTube machen hier: https://youtu.be/6DYcsiT5h9g

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