Noah's Ark Baby Shower Cake

I am so excited to share this with you. In fact, I almost couldn't stand waiting to show you it! I finally got a request to make a Noah's Ark cake! I've always wanted to try making a Noah's Ark cake, here was my big opportunity and it was actually a whole lot of FUN!

Firstly I planned out my cake for about two weeks. I worked out the sizes, when to make the animals and colour the fondant. I came up with ideas of which animals I would like on the Ark then got to work on it two days before it was due.

To make the boat shape I used baked two vanilla cakes in oval tins. These turned out to be the perfect shape for the job! I covered the cakes in vanilla buttercream then tried something new, I placed a long roll of fondant around the top so the boat would have a rim around the top.

To make the middle of the Ark that looks a bit like a little house, I used LCMs (or Rice Crispy Treats) I squished six of them together then cut the top on an angle and iced it with buttercream, just like the cake.





I covered the cake and LCM's in brown fondant then cut out thin strips of the same coloured fondant and marked in them using a knife to make it look like wood. I stuck these all on to the cake in alternating patterns then used a toothpick to make holes in the sides (to look like nails) I loved how the boat looked!




Now it was time to make all the animals. I Googled "Cute Elephant" and so on for each animal, that way I could get a good idea of how to make the animals look cute rather than realistic (this was for a baby shower, after all!) I made four of each kind (two for the boat and two for the cupcakes) and "glued" the animals to the boat using some Royal Icing.






The giraffes were made the day before using gumpaste. I wasn't sure if they would be strong enough if I just made them out of fondant so gumpaste was the way to go. For each of the animals I made one a girl and one a boy, the girls had eyelashes and a bow on their heads. I even made dolphins, shark fins and whales!



After finishing the cake I whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes, iced them with a swirl of chocolate buttercream then placed two cute animals on each one.






All in all, the decorating part of the cake took me eight and a half hours to do! I actually really enjoyed it so didn't even think about the time it took.

I couldn't believe how it all turned out in the end. It was even better than I planned!