Giraffe Cake

My friend, Meghan, had her sixteenth birthday party the other day, and I volunteered to make a cake. She said she liked layered cakes and giraffes, so I decided to put them together and make a 2 layered cake with a 3D giraffe on the top. The ingrediants I used were, 1 chocolate cake mix, 1 funfetti cake mix, 2 cans of vanilla frosting, 1 box of regular white fondant (can buy at AC Moore or Michaels, or the Wilton website.), rice crispy treats, yellow, orange, purple, black, yellow, green, and pink food coloring, blue sparkly frosting gel, coconut, and silver edible candies ( I got these from a friend who bought them a long time ago so I don't know where you could buy them, sorry =[ )

First, I made the funfetti cake in the big round pan and the chocolate cake in the smaller circle pan. I let those cool overnight and then cut the tops off to make them flat. Then I frosted both cakes with a first thin layer of vanilla frosting and let that cool in the fridge. After that's cool, I did the final coat of vanilla frosting. Then I started the fondant parts. I bought pre-colored neon purple, orange, pink, and yellow frosting, which is what I used for the flowers and stripes. I cut the stripes into 1/4 inch stripes using a Wilton ribbon cutter and embosser set. You could also just measure out the strips using a ruler and cut them with the ruler and a knife. I just laid these on top of the bottom cake, each were separated by about 1 and 1/4 inches of frosting.

After that, I started cutting out the flowers. I cut out about 7 orange ones and 7 pink ones. I had a medium sized flower cutter from the cake class I took, so I just used that, but you could use anything really, or just cut them out with a knife. Then I used a small circle cutter to cut out 14 yellow flower middles and stuck those onto the flowers. I used a knife to cut some of the flowers in half randomly and stuck them on the cake, every other color. 

Next, I died the coconut orange for the grass. I just threw the coconut in a bag and mixed it with the green food coloring. Just a handful will do it, and then throw it in the center of the cake. Then I wrote "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEG!" on the cake with the blue sparkly frosting gel. Obviously, you can just write whatever you want. 

Finally, I worked on the giraffe. I molded the giraffe from rice crispy treats. I was running low on time and didn't have enough time to make my own rice crispy treats, so i cheated and bought a box of them at the grocery store. I just kind of stuck them together and made the shape of a giraffe. I stuck the legs, neck, and head into the body with wood skewer things. 

Then, I stuck the giraffe in the freezer to stick together for about 5 minutes. While it was freezing, I got out the box of white fondant and started rolling it out to cover the giraffe in, Then I took the giraffe out of the freezer and kind of cut the fondant into rectangles to stick around the legs, neck, and body. I just kind of wrapped them around the rice crispy treat and tried to smooth it out with my fingers. I also made the ears, tail and horns out of fondant and just stuck those on. Then I mixed the yellow and orange food coloring together in a little bowl until I got a brown color that I thought would look good on my giraffe. Then I used a paintbrush and started randomly painting giraffe spots onto my giraffe.

This took a long time and I wish I made the spots a lot bigger, so keep that in mind. I also painted the eyes and the feetsies black with the black food coloring. To stick the giraffe in the cake, I stuck some more wood skewers into the giraffes feet and the cake and it stood up for a good 2 hours until we decided to eat it. I also threw some of the silver edible candies in the spaces between the purple fondant stripes.