Party on a Stump Cake

This is a cake I thought about while trying to decide on what to make for a 2 year old’s birthday party. His dad had no idea about what he wanted, neither did the celebrant. I first settled for a drum with elephants on and around it. Subsequently I felt elephants on a stump made more sense and that’s how this cake was conceived. It is such an interesting cake which has a lot going on.

The cake is the actual tree stump which consists of a 10 inch French vanilla sponge frosted with vanilla buttercream. All the designes on the cake were made with marshmallow fondant.

The elephants are the focal point of this cake and instead of making a simplified elephant, I decided to go with more complicated fondant elephants. On elephant is sited on the cake while the other is partially submerged in a pool of water in front of the cake. A pictorial on how to make these elephants can be found here.

This was the first time I was using this technique for making a tree stump. I first of all made the top of the stump and later covered the sides with fondant and made markings on it. I had a few rough moments but in the end, it came out beautifully.

The tree stump is sitting in a cake board which I covered with fondant, made some indentations with a ball toll and painted green. This was also the first time I was trying this technique and I hope to use it in other cakes in the future.

Surprisingly, a lot of people who saw this cake fell in love with the hedgehogs which were meant to only be a minute part of the cake. I guess its because they are just so cute. They were made entirely of marshmallow fondant. A hedgehog is partially out of a hole on the base of the tree stump while another is climbing up the stump with the aid of a rope pegged on top of the stump. I am in the process of making another tree stump cake which would be all about these hedgehogs. I intend to call the cake “Hedgehog Colony Cake.” Tutorial for how to make these hedgehogs can be found here.