Cookin' Mary's Adventures: Penguin Cake

This is my first foray into fondant. (except for the arms and legs of the monkey - but nobody really SAW it since I covered it with frosting stars!). My good friend is fanatical about penguins. So when her 40th birthday rolled around it seemed as likely a time as any to make a go at it. I've always loved making 3-D animal cakes and luckily a penguin is relatively easy. I have a 3-D snowman cake pan from Wiliams Sonoma and thought it wouldn't be too difficult to carve it into a penguin! I began with a few sketches, to get the proportions correct.

First I cemented the two halves of the pan with royal icing, wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. After it was solid enough to carve I began by cutting off the top hat, the broom, and any other bits to give me a smooth head and body. Obviously the snowman has curves so I frosted the whole thing with a coupler-fitted decorating bag without a tip. Then, starting at the bottom, I frosted a long rope spiral up and around the body, filling in the curvy parts. Once the spiral was at the top I used my small offset spatula to carve out the neck and smooth the whole body. I then used a piece of waxed paper to create a template for the big fondant piece that was to cover the head and face.

By the way, I used a chocolate fondant which tastes a lot like tootsie roll! I can't say I'm very fond of white fondant - which is why I left the body in buttercream. Once I had the hat smoothed over the head I used kitchen shears to trim the excess.