Nellie the Elephant Cake

I recently attended the 'Cute Carved Elephant Cake' course at Cakes 4 Fun  and the cake certainly lives up to it's billing as it's super cute! But what is the secret to this gravity defying cake? Rice Krispie squares! If you've ever seen Ace of Cakes you'll know that Rice Krispie squares can be used to make more intricate structures that you could never make out of cake, whilst keeping your creation food safe and edible.

The good news is you don't have to go to the supermarket and clear ths shelves of little packs of Rice Krispie squares...you can now buy 'Treat Sheets' as above which is 907g of the stuff! You can buy a sheet from Jane Asher for £16.99 but I'm sure you can buy it at other online stores too. The crispy marshmallow is perfect for moulding as you can squish it into any shape that you'd like and you can also cut it with a sharp knife.

To make Nellie, the body is carved out of cake and cut and filled as usual. It's then crumb coated and covered with grey sugarpaste. However, both the head and legs are made out of Rice Krispies, as is the ball balanced on the top. The paste sticks naturally as if you've ever had Rice Krispie treats, you'll know that they're very sticky! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of Nellie pre-covering!



The good thing about this cake is that elephants are naturally creased and wrinkly so the sugarpaste covering doesn't have to be perfect. In order to make the legs and head mould seamlessly to the body, a roll of grey paste was wrapped around the joint and then pressed in with a Dresden tool to make it look creased. In order to secure Nellie's ball to the top of her trunk, a skewer was pushed down through. The ball itself is glittery as it was covered lightly in edible glue and then rolled in glitter.

 

Rice Krispie Treats are a great way to model more complex structures on cakes and I'm looking forward to using them in the future...I've already got a couple of projects in mind! :-)

 

And to finish...a herd of Nellies...