Viking Birthday Party I Toothless Cake & Loot Bags

Continuing on with the Viking Birthday Party, I didn’t want to go completely over the top with the How to Train your Dragon theme, but including Toothless made my daughter extremely happy. Beautiful cakes are not as hard as you might imagine. Fondant is like making a cake with plasticine, armed with Youtube, a bit of time, and the proper tools, even aspiring cake decorators such as myself can pull one out of a hat. This cake took me 8.5 hours from start to finish.

By: Janet New

Materials:

• two tiers of cake
• fondant Tiffany Blue large tub, and small white tub (Bulk Barn)
• Gum Tex (Bulk Barn)
• Wilton food colouring (Bulk Barn)
• Fondant rolling pin  (Bulk Barn)
• clear mat (Bulk Barn)
• Cake Board x2 (I used one 6” and one 8”) (Bulk Barn)
• 2 large tubs of butter cream icing (Bulk Barn)
• Fondant Smoother (Michaels)
• 8” round baking tin (Michaels)
• 6” round baking tin (Michaels)
• toothpicks
• Flower cutters
• Dull knife
• Small paint brush

MAKING THE CAKE

STEP 1: MAKING THE CAKE
I have yet to get fancy with my cake recipes – fortunately kids love Betty Crocker! Bake one layer of round 8” and two of 6”, let cool. Place your 8″ cake on the cake board (makes it easier to transport to a platter later), then cover it with butter cream icing. For the 6″, place a layer of icing on the top of the bottom layer and place on the top layer, then cover entire two layers with butter cream icing. Don’t worry about the cake crumbs in the icing. They will disappear with the second or third coating. The first coat is called a “Crumb Coat.”  Place in fridge until icing is hard, then smooth with your fondant smoother and repeat the icing and cooling process twice more. You should now have one 8” and one 6” double-tiered cake.

Note: I found that my cake was quite light and fluffy so next time I am going to put little stands in the 8″ cake to support the weight of the 6″ cake (once I had put the layer of fondant icing on the 6″ cake it was quite heavy and sunk in a little bit once I had assembled the cakes together).

STEP 2 
While cakes are cooling you can make all of the coloured fondant. You will need to make colours for your leaves, flowers, Toothless (don’t forget the eyes and tongue colours) and tree.

STEP 3 
Place down your matte (this and the fondant roller make your life so much easier when trying to roll out large areas of smooth fondant, and then transfer the fondant onto your cake). Measure the tier you want to cover (both sides and the diameter), add an extra inch for safety and this is the diameter you want to roll your fondant out with your fondant rolling pin (a fondant rolling pin is nice and long so you don’t get the indentations in the fondant when rolling large pieces).

STEP 4
Carefully ease the fondant off of the mat and onto your pin and lift onto your 8″ cake. Smooth the top out with your fondant smoother. To smooth down the sides, keep rotating the cake and smooth from the top down until you reach the bottom. Cut away excess and set aside for later use. Repeat for your 6″ cake.

STEP 5
Gently place the 6″ cake centred on the 8″ cake. Smooth any rough edges on the top tier as they meet the bottom tier. Roll the excess fondant into long strips and place around the bottom of both layers of cake.

STEP 6: MAKING THE TREE
Using my nice chocolaty brown fondant, I rolled out about a 12″ square piece and hand cut out the tree. I didn’t get too fussy with the shape as I stuck a flower wherever I was unhappy with the angle of the branches. I then pulled away the excess fondant and brushed a layer of water on the tree. Starting with the trunk (wet side facing the cake) I aligned it with the bottom 8″ layer and gently rolled it up to the top of the 6″ layer.

STEP 7: MAKING THE FLOWERS
Mix your coloured fondant with a bit of Gum Tex so that the fondant will dry more quickly and the flowers will not get droopy when placed on the cake. Next roll out your flower coloured fondant and use your cookie cutters to create the flowers. I purchased mine at a cake show, but I’m sure you can find them at Michaels or a Baking supply store. Here is a link to what mine look like. Brush the underside with water and place strategically onto your tree.

STEP 8: MAKING THE LEAVES
Again, mix  your coloured fondant with a bit of Gum Tex. Next roll out a flat piece and using your dull knife cut out leaf shapes from the fondant. Gently curl the edges of the leaves to give them more dimension. Brush water on the underside and place near a flower.

STEP 9: MAKING THE TOOTHLESS
Take a snowball sized chunk of black fondant that you have already mixed. Roll it a bit so that one end tapers (to be the tail) and the other end is quite stubby (body). Set asid. Next roll out some legs – be sure to make three tiny claws for each leg. Place on body using water to glue them together. The front two legs will support the weight of the body in an upright position. Next roll a ball that will become the head. Apply two small yellow circles for the eye sockets, inside of that place two smaller black circles at the bottom for the pupils, and finally two very small white highlights. Shape a tiny tongue with a groove running down the centre, make a small incision in the head and insert the tongue.

For the wings, and tail pieces, I rolled a flat bit of fondant and then using my dull knife cut out the shapes. I then stylized with very thinly rolled bits of fondant to add spine like textures. For the large wings I inserted one end of a toothpick into the wing for stability and the other into the body of Toothless. Finally I added the spines and ears.

LOOT BAG IDEAS

Dragon Nip: Sugar straws (my daughter thought of this instead of catnip!) (Bulk Barn)
Dragon Teeth: Hershey Kisses(Bulk Barn)
Meatlug Lava Rocks: Chocolate Rocks (Bulk Barn)
Viking Dragon Manual: I designed using trivia about the dragons
Loot Bag: Sewn using cheap cotton with pinking sheared edges (Fabricland)
Tie: Leather string (Fabricland)
Tag: Viking medallion with child’s name, cut using my 2″ Fiskars cutter (Michaels)