After researching pictures of Chewbacca cakes, I came to the realization that he was a difficult character to recreate in dessert form. Most of the ones I found were scary, and not in a good way. There are so many ways to get him wrong. Add to that I am no where near a master cake decorator and I couldn't figure out how I was going to pull one of these cakes off for my son's first birthday.
In searching for Chewie images I came across a fantastic artist that some of you may have heard of, Katie Cook. I *love *her stuff! Her characters have the cutest faces and I fell in love with her version of Chewbacca. I used her image as a spring board and then started figuring out the easiest way for me to achieve the look I wanted. I knew piping frosting was out of the question. I am nowhere near that good. I can barely write "Happy Birthday" when it is called for.
My *Ah ha *moment came when my daughter and I were watching one of our favorite shows, Cake Boss. My daughter and I are ravenous Cake Boss fans and on many of his episodes he talks about modeling chocolate. So I thought I could buy some at my local craft store, but when I started looking at it, modeling chocolate is super easy to make. So being the intrepid baker, I decided I could make it myself and goodness knows I needed to practice to avoid being on Cake Wrecks. I used the recipe here, but rather than put it in a pan, I just put it in a zip top baggie.
I did have a couple of problems with the chocolate. First, it stuck to the counter. Badly. I followed the advice in this recipe and greased my counter with cooking spray, but it didn't work. Maybe I didn't use enough spray, but when I was all done with my sculpting I couldn't get it off the counter, even with a spatula. Chewie ended up tearing a bit, but since this was a practice cake it was OK. Maybe parchment paper will keep him from sticking next time. Thoughts anyone?
Second, when they say use powdered coloring, they mean it. I tried making some black modeling chocolate using white chocolate chips and black gel coloring. It did make black, but it was super greasy and gross. I ended up throwing it away. This modeling chocolate was easy to make, very versatile, and you could use it to sculpt just about anything. It is a very forgiving dessert medium and I think Chewbacca turned out fairly well.
Other than that, this cake was easy peasy. I just used a cake mix, buttercream frosting, and my sculpted Chewbacca and voila! This was my first time to pipe stars around the edge and they actually look good. I was shocked. Watch for more Star Wars birthday ideas as I will be crafting up until the big day in April.
Incidentally, Katie also did a design for Yoda and Chewbacca gift boxes. I am planning to print these out on cardstock and send them home in the guests' goodie bags as a craft.
