Dalek Cake With Light, Sound and Motion - Insane

This was an extreme cake for a group of elementary and jr. high robotics team members - it's 1/2 cake and 1/2 actual mutant Dalek.



For the cake:
The cake is seven 11x15 layers of cake, with cake boards and dowels between layers 4 and 5. (I made a serious error and used non-stick cake boards, which caused the layers to separate during transport - don't do that!) Buttercream between the layers. Carve the front and back to make the classic Dalek body shape. Crumb coat with buttercream, then frost with buttercream tinted golden yellow (or whatever color you like).

To get a sense of size - this cake required 16 box mixes (8 each chocolate and yellow cake), 4 dozen eggs, 8 cups of oil... plus approximately 8 lbs of powdered sugar for the buttercream along with 16 sticks of butter, 8 sticks of Crisco, 1 full bottle of vanilla... you get the idea! But it had to be big to scale with Greg's top.

For the knobs, I melted white chocolate and molded it using the Wilton "Dessert Domes" candy mold, the middle size dome. Apply these to the cake before the buttercream sets, and use some additional icing to help secure the candy. You need approximately 56 of the domes - 14 rows of 4, for an authentic Dalek. [Note - the mold instructions tell you to freeze the candy, but don't do that - it gets too brittle and the domes crack. Just let them set in the refrigerator.]

To finish, I airbrushed the cake with gold paint - I have a new "Duff's" airbrush machine and used the Duff's gold color paint. Very pleased with this.

Note that this "finished cake" is actually a shadow of what the cake could have been. As mentioned above, I used non-stick cake boards between the layers. I wanted to able to easily separate the layers for serving. I made a critical error, however, in that I doubled the cake boards so it would be non-stick on both sides. When we were moving the cake in the car, the layers slid apart, doing major damage. I had 40 minutes before the party, so I got my Mom (God Bless Mom!) to drive over so Greg could run to the store for canned icing - I reassembled the layers as best I could in the back of his car. I pulled off all the knobs, reiced with vanilla icing (mixed as best I could with the yellow/gold) and replaced the knobs. It was a good save, and the cake was still a hit thanks to Greg's magic top. (But UGH!)

The real magic of this cake is the Dalek top, which Greg built. As one friend noted: "authentic BBC special effects!" (That was meant as a compliment.)



Here is Greg's write-up:

The "brain" of the Dalek is an Arduino Uno microcontroller with an Adafruit Wave Shield added to give it audio capability. The head movement is done with a standard high-torque servo and an added pushbutton triggers activity. The arduino is powered with 8 AA batteries. The arduino can't produce much volume by itself, so the audio goes through a Bump 3.5mm Portable Mini Speaker (which has an internal battery charged over USB.)
The non-cake portion of the Dalek has three components. The top dome is half of an 8" styrofoam ball (covered with masking tape so it can be painted with standard paint). The "ears" are empty glass Testors paint jars with internal LEDs. The eye stalk is a 1/2" cardboard tube with a styrofoam ball (again taped and painted). The blue LED in the center of the eye is hard-wired to a CR2032 battery so that it is always on. The bottom side of the dome has a lego gear with 8 pins that sync with the servo when the dome is set upon the layer below.
The middle part of the Dalek assembly is made of circular pieces of MDF, cut with a Dremel circle cutter. The bottom is solid, middle two boards are only 1" wide rings and the top is a ring with a center bar where the servo is mounted. The layers are spaced with 1" lengths of PVC pipe. All the electronics, batteries and speaker fit inside this assembly. To hide these components, the inside of the ring is lined with thin, dark gray foam that was packing material.
The top and middle component are also linked with wires for the "ear" lights. These lights are synchronized with the audio through a simple circuit that can be found here. The wires just run through the access holes cut in the top ring of the middle element, and the motion of the top is limited so that the wires don't restrict the motion.
The bottom part of the Dalek assembly is a made of a 4" high, 8" diameter styrofoam cylinder glued to a 9" diameter bottom "plate". Onto this assembly are glued trapezoids cut from foam board to create the octagonal sides. Joints are taped and the assembly painted. The Dalek "gun" is a wire whisk with a roll of paper tucked inside, set in a black PVC pipe. The "sucker" is a funnel covered in black tape and mounted in a PVC pipe. Both the gun and sucker fit in holes cut in the foam board and are then shoved into the styrofoam inside.
The controlling software for the Dalek is about 250 lines of C code, mostly derived from an example program provided with the Wave Shield. The approach is pretty simple. At setup time, the program creates a list of all the .WAV files at the top level of the SD card filesystem. Then it enters a loop, waiting for a button press. Upon button press, the code selects an audio file at random and commands the wave shield to start playing it. While the audio file is playing, the code generates a random position value and commands the servo to move to it, delaying for a period of time based upon the distance to be moved so that the servo has time to move. This is done repeatedly until the wave shield indicates that the WAV file is done playing. Then the servo is moved back to the neutral central location and we go back to waiting for the next button press. (Actual code can be provided upon request.)


Also - thanks to my British friend Mark who provided the voice talent for the Dalek's "gracious professionalism" speech! That's the robotics program credo, so a nice finishing touch!

Peace on Endor - Medium

I made this cake for my Star Wars friends for our annual Life Day Party:  Peace on Endor!  Good Will to All Beings!

I made the fondant figures in advance:  Jawas untangling a box of Christmas lights, a Wookie and Ewok family decorating a tree with imperial helmets...

 

The wookie looked like he might have been in the eggnog.  (Plus he was a little tipsy on the cake!)

Secure the standing figures to the cake with skewers or toothpicks.  (The baby ewok is just sitting on the cake, with her candy cane, as is the kneeling jawa.  The standing jawa is built on a part of a sugar cone, so very stable.  I used orange nonpareils for the eyes.)

I baked a 14" round cake plus the small paisley cake.  I used 3 box mixes across the 2 pans.  Let cool and cover with white buttercream.

To make the tree, cover a plain sugar cone with green stars (using #16 Wilton tip and a tube of green icing) - pull the stars a bit as you release, to make "branches."  Decorate with small lights from a craft store, candies, and helmets.  Affix Lego helmets with a bit of green icing.  

On the top layer, we had Darth "I find your lack of Festivus disturbing" Vader with a Festivus pole. 

Just because.  Happy Holidays!  (And may the Force be with you, throughout the year!)

Reindeer Cake - Easy and Very Fun

For the holidays!

This cake is made using the Wilton "Rudy Reindeer" pan, which is discontinued but still available on eBay.  (Note - Wilton has instructions for all the pans online, so if you find an old pan, you can get the instructions easily!)   Even without the pan, you can put the reindeer on any large sheet cake.

To make this version:  frost the cake with white buttercream.  Outline the ear, mouth, chin and eye using a tube of chocolate icing.  Reserve a bit of white buttercream for the bottom stars.

Tint the buttercream tan for the ears and antlers.  Use a #16 tip (small open star) for the ears and around the eye.  Pull the stars a bit to create a feathered look at the top of the ear.  Use a serrated basketweave tip (such as #47) to make the antlers. (Don't worry if the lines overlap.)  Make sure you pipe with the serrated edge up, to create the ridges on the antlers.

Tint the tan buttercream a darker brown and use a larger open star tip (such as #18) for the rest of the deer.  Using black icing from tube, pipe the eye, with a round tip (#3).  Accent with green icing from a tube (also using a round tip, #2).  Let the black set for a few minutes, then pat it smooth with a very clean,very dry finger.  Add the white accent with a #2 tip.

Using red icing from a tube, outline the bow (#3 tip) then fill in with stars.  (You can also make the bow green if you prefer, or mix red and green.)

Using the green tube (#2 tip), pipe a "cord" around the antlers, then add colored spice drops for lights.  I usually pipe a "plug" (like a filled in 1/2 circle with prongs) on the back.  Add the red nose - a sour cherry ball.

Finish with white stars on the bottom, add red/green M&Ms if desired.

Cornucopia - Easy

My niece's birthday was on Thanksgiving last year, so I made a special dessert for her.  Very easy.

Bake a cake using the paisley pan.  (1 or 2 layers, depending on how much cake you want.)  Frost with light brown or tan buttercream.  Tint good fondant brown, roll thin and cut into even strips.  Weave these into a mat (using a standard basketweave pattern).  Lay over the cake, trimming the edges and across the front (so that you have cake "sticking" out to hold the bounty from the cornucopia).  Twist 2 fondant ropes to make the nice edge. 

Add whatever you like to the top of the cake - maripan fruits, fondant fruits, real fruits, candy... This is a mix of wrapped Rocher chocolates with sparkly plastic fruits that I had on hand.  Impromptu!  I decorated the base with buttercream stars and candy corn.

Petranaki Arena - Medium/Difficult

Oldest son wanted this classic scene from Episode 2 for his birthday, but he doesn't like cake so much so he asked me to use snickerdoodle cookies.  The arena walls are all cookies, the rest is fondant and inedible decorations.

This treat requires some prep.  I started with a very large plastic plant saucer from Home Depot, then got 4 sheets of craft foam from from Michael's.  Greg was nice enough to cut a big hole in the foam so the saucer could fit inside.  (So the foam was like a collar around the top of the saucer.)  He then covered all the Styrofoam with brown duck tape.

The Styrofoam gave me added height for the arena walls, to help with scale.  It also gave me a perfect way to anchor skewers to hold the cookies up.

I also got a pine dowel at Home Depot, stained it Sedona Red, and cut it to 8" lengths for the posts. Using a glue gun, secure these to the saucer.

Make the figures and beasts in advance from fondant.  I made Padme crouching, to position her on top of her post.  Anakin and Obi Wan were flat, for positioning against their posts.  For all, I made the bodies and heads, but left them bald (piped on hair at the end).  Make little handcuffs from dark grey fondant.

The Geonosian was suspended on a clear skewer obtained from the florist dept at Publix,   Roll the wings very, very thin.  I made the legs and arms separately, then attached with 1/2 toothpick.

The reek was the easiest - make him out of dark grey fondant, with a very thin stip of red on the back.  Add horns.  I did the brown bumps later with icing.  I did use the end of a skewer to make indentations on the back, then I piped brown icing into the indentations to get the desired effect.

The nexu was made from brown fondant.  I also made the spines for the back from dark grey fondant. When assembling, I piped tan icing on top with a #16 Wilton tip.  I used a #2 black tip to add some of the brindling (see a pcutres), as well as the claws, and I inserted the spines on the back into the icing. No. 2 tip white teeth.

The acklay requires some experimentation.  I made the body out of blue fondant, which set up on a glass (on its side) to give it the rearing-up shape.  I went over the back and head with some water and diluted green food coloring when he was set.  I also make the legs.  Note that he has 3 vestigial toes.  My plan was to support him with a clear skewer, but I could not do that on the plastic saucer, so  I ended up attaching the legs to a bit of white fondant that I wedged under the body to make it stand properly.  You could see the white wedge, but it was not a problem.

I traced the saucer curve shape onto parchment paper and cut it out. I made 4 batches of snickerdoodle cookies, using a rolled sugar cookie recipe.  Chill the dough, roll a long strip, the use a pizza cutter to cut the bottom edge of the cookies to follow the curve of the saucer.  Cut the strips in approx. 3 " lengths, and using a large round Wilton tip (such as 172) cut a hole in each cookie approx 1/2 inch from the end.  You will thread cookies onto skewers with the hole, so try to get cookies that are the same width with the hole in approx. the same place!   Before baking, sprinkle sugars with cinnamon-sugar.   Width of the cookies doesn't matter as much - I make some wider for the bottom rows, then some narrow for the top.  But do keep the width the same, so you don't get gaps between the rows.

To assemble, fit a row of cookies around the saucer, covering 2/3rd of so of the circumference. Stick a long skewer through each hole, securing it well in the Styrofoam.  Fitting cookies in like a puzzle, build the arena walls.  You'll want a lot of the height behind the posts.  This took around 160-175 cookies.

The spires are fondant covered Styrofoam cones, just for effect.  I also used some fondant for the "doorway" on the side of the saucer.

Star Wars Cookie Ideas

I had to share this link to Yoda-girl Sugarbelle's blog about making Star Wars cookies using standard cookie cutters. Brilliant!   

http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/blog/2011/11/star-wars-cookies-with-holiday-cutters/

Star Wars Halloween

Greg carved the Death Star - Very difficult (took hours & hours!)  I did the rest - Vadar was difficult, but the rest were pretty easy.   Happy Halloween!

 

 This one's a jawa.

And the obligatory picture of the kids in their costumes!