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How to Build a 3D Tux Cake
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This is the famous Tux cake that you've been hearing about! Now, let me preface this by saying that I have never built a 3D cake before. Generally speaking, this is best left to the professionals, for reasons that I'm sure will become clear over the course of this tutorial. That said, I did manage to pull this off in my home kitchen. Some of the equipment and tools I used were specialized for cake decorators, but that doesn't mean that it was expensive or difficult to find. If you happen to have a cake decorating store in your area, you should have no problem locating these tools. If you don't, many of the craft stores in my area also have a cake decorating section, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same in your area. If nothing else, the fact that you found this tutorial tells me that you probaby have access to the Internet, where you can buy anything online, including kidneys (so I've been told). Most, if not all of my tools are available for purchase at Orson Gygi in Salt Lake. Tell 'em I sent you. If you decide to go about this yourself, I recommend reading all of this article first, including all of the recipes that I link to. You might pick up a caveat that I failed to mention, and it's better to have a complete understanding before starting anyway.
Before I get started, it wouldn't be right of me to ignore the people who helped me out. Art Pollard at Amano Artisan Chocolate managed to get me a lot of premier chocolate to be used as modelling chocolate, even though he wasn't technically in production yet. For those of you who don't know, Art is a computer geek gone chef, just like myself. How many chocolate companies do you know that a) are run by a computer geek and b) create their chocolate directly from the bean? There are only about a dozen chocolate factories in the United States who go straight from the bean. Everyone else buys either from them or overseas. The difference is, Art doesn't just use one recipe for every bean. He actually takes the time to make sure each variety of bean is used to it's own, maximum potential. I also had a lot of help from Scott Robertson, Andrew McNabb and Topher Fischer. These three starving students came to help me "dispose" of cake scraps, and ended up becoming sous chefs and artists. I don't know that I could have done a lot of the modelling chocolate jobs without them. And of course, without PLUG celebrating its 10th birthday, there wouldn't have been much reason for a cake in the first place.
First of all, let's cover what you need. On ingredients your mileage may vary, depending on how thickly you apply buttercream, roll modelling chocolate, etc. I'll try to give you a decent range.
- parchment paper
- a pack of 4-inch skewers
- at least one 12-inch cake pan
- six cake layers, 2-inches tall, baked in the 12-inch cake pan(s)
- a cake heating core, for baking the 12-inch cakes
- at least one 7-inch cake pan
- four cake layers, 2-inches tall, baked in the 7-inch cake pan(s)
- a good serrated knife (at least 8 - 10 inches long)
- a cake turntable (optional, but highly recommended)
- two 6-inch plastic cake rounds*
- two 10-inch plastic cake rounds*
- one 12-inch plastic cake round*
- black oil-based food coloring +
- yellow oil-based food coloring +
- about 2 - 3 pounds buttercream icing**
- about 3 - 4 pounds dark modelling chocolate***, colored black with the oil-based food color
- about 1 - 2 pounds white modelling chocolate***
- a couple of 1/4-inch dowels (just your standard 3 to 4 foot length)
- something to cut the dowels with, like a small saw
- an offset spatula
- a confectionary tool set (optional)
- a couple of batches of Rice Krispy Treats
- a rolling pin
- a piping bag (optional)
- a large, flat, clean workspace, for rolling chocolate ++
- It also helps to be completely insane. This is one time I wish I had that luxury.
* Cake rounds are available at most cake stores. They are usually cardboard, but if you can find plastic (like the corrogated plastic ones that I used), I highly recommend them. Mine were about 1/8-inch thick, which is probably about what you want.
** Please, please, please use real buttercream. You're going to have people eating this cake, and there's no reason to make them eat some shortening-based crap.
*** This is the recipe I used. In the past and on this recipe, I've used Guittard white chocolate chips (available at many megamarts), Guittard dark chocolate chips and Ghiradelli dark chocolate (shaved from a 10-pound block). In this cake, I stuck with a 70% dark Amano Chocolate for everything black. Since Amano doesn't currently make white chocolate, I stuck with Guittard.
+ Make sure you use oil-based food color. Water-based will render your chocolate unusable.
++ I used my wooden kitchen table.
