Jungle Cake

by Jeanni N.
(Tucson, AZ)

A friend of mine in a mommies group was having a birthday party for her son. She asked me if I could do a cake. She picked out a jungle theme and the inspiration began! Her son was turning 3, so he was so excited about the elephant. We decided that should be the focus of the cake.

I used a round 12-inch cake pan. I baked 3 white cakes in it. Then I made a Bavarian cream filling.

After the cakes cooled I began stacking them. A layer of cake - a layer of filing. Make sure not to put too much filling on or it will squish out the edges when you put the next layer of cake on.

After that I put a coat of buttercream frosting over the cake. It doesn't need to be neat you are covering it with fondant.

After that the tedious work begins: coloring the fondant. I used a 5-gallon bucket. I added the color that I wanted and mixed and mixed and mixed. Once it was all mixed together I rolled it out and cut a circle big enough to cover the cake. Then I smoothed it all over the cake. Once that is done you cut all the excess off around the base of the cake.

The elephant is made out of fondant. Just 2 balls sitting on top of each other. He is pretty simple to make. Just do him a day or two ahead of time so he can dry.

The palm trees are Nestle Crunch sticks with royal icing leaves. For the bottom I used fondant colored green and took a leaf shaped cookie cutter and applied them all around the base. Then I took the left over blue and green fondant and braided them together to make a bottom border.

It was such a fun cake to make & it was even funner to see the reaction of the kids and parents!

Editor's Note: That's a gorgeous cake, Jeanni. Thanks for sharing the picture and the helpful instructions on how you made it. It might inspire others to give it a try!