Alligator Cake

I made this Alligator cake for my daughters first birthday! I had a lot of fun making it and learned some things along the way:)

I found this picture online from cakes we bake and used it as my guide. They used fondant to decorate and colored it different colors for the spikes, bow and eyes. I did mine a little different.

Have you ever made cake balls? We make them all the time...they are so easy and yummy! I made my cake like a giant cake ball.

First I made 3 cakes, 1 chocolate and two vanilla sprinkle.

When the cakes cooled a bit I crumbled them up into little pieces using my hands. Then I mixed in a tub of frosting with the crumbs and molded the cake below.

The molding is what took the longest (about 4o min) I put detail into the molding and realized after that it didn't matter because it was going to be covered in frosting.

When I got done molding I covered the cake with a crumb layer of frosting to keep the crumbs in and then I put it into the fridge to cool for awhile.

I then colored some frosting green and covered the cake.

I made a cute pink bow out of 4 air heads.

I made marshmallow fondant for the white of the eyes and used junior mints for the black of the eyes...I like how they popped out a little bit.

Had I known fondant was so easy I would have done the whole cake in it. I used a simple recipe that stretched really well for the eyes. It's 1 tsp water melted with 1 cup of marshmallow and then mixed in with 1 cup powdered sugar...so easy!

I used green chocolate melting chips cut in half for the alligator spikes and made a little sign for the alligator to hold to show it was my daughters first birthday.

I liked making this cake because if I needed to re-mold something it was simple I just started over. When I use pans the cake seems to crumble in spots and I end up trying to repair spots...I am sure I just need more practice.

This cake was really dense so I would recommend small pieces with ice cream when serving.

I would also recommend covering the cardboard with parchment paper rather then using foil or paper...it doesn't absorb the oil and end up looking dirty. ( I used parchment paper for the base of this cake and it stayed clean through all the decorating!)