Ninjago Cake Tutorial

I made this Ninjago cake for a co-worker's grandson.  It was a pretty simple cake to make, but I ended up using LOTS of fondant.  The cake was eight inches in diameter and about six inches high by the time that I finished.

I started by baking a dense vanilla cake, since I knew that the fondant would end up being fairly heavy and I didn't want it to collapse (that would be terrible!).

I baked five layers and leveled four of the layers.  I left the fifth layer rounded to give the cake a slightly rounded top. Then I filled and frosted the cake and covered it with yellow fondant.  Since my fondant wasn't super smooth, I rolled and cut another piece of yellow fondant to use as the face and attached it with some piping gel.

Next, I rolled out two rectangular pieces of blue fondant, rolled one edge under on each rectangle, and attached them to the sides of the face.

Then I cut a long strip of blue fondant to go around the cake.  I folded over each end of the strip to make a second pleat on each side that slightly overlapped the first.  I cut off the excess around the bottom.

Next, I rolled up a piece of fondant and added an arch of fondant over the front/top section of the cake (to look like a pleat when I added the top piece of fondant).

For the top portion, I rolled out a large piece of blue fondant and shaped it around the face by rolling it under.  Then I pulled the sides back, creating pleats and rolling the edges under, bringing the ends together in the back near the bottom of the head.  I cut away all of the excess so that there would be space for my knot later on.  (Sorry for all of the corn starch in the photos... That's what I was using to roll out my fondant, and it made quite a mess!)

For the bottom portion of the mask, I rolled out a long rectangle of fondant and folded it over itself a couple of times to create pleats.  Then I shaped it around the face, attaching it with piping gel and tucked the ends under the edge of the cake.

To make the eyes, I found a picture online by Googling "printable Ninjago eyes."  I think that I ended up downloading the first one that I stumbled upon.  Then I resized it to be 6x3 inches (the approximate dimensions of the face of this cake) and I printed it out.  I cut out one of the eyebrows and used it as a template to cut the eyebrows for the face.  For the eyes, I used a frosting tip to cut circles of black fondant.  Then I used the wax paper transfer method (like I used for my polka dot cake in my previous post) to attach the eyes/eyebrows to the face.  If you're not familiar with this method, here are the steps:

* Place printed Ninjago face picture under a piece of wax paper.

* Put a light coating of vegetable shortening on the wax paper.

* Place the eyes and eyebrows onto the wax paper.

* Spread a small amount of piping gel onto the eyes/eyebrows.

* Pick up the piece of wax paper and place it onto the cake where you want the eyes to be.

* Peel the wax paper away.

I added a small dot of white fondant to each eye.

The last piece that I added was the knot/tails.  For the tails, I cut out two eightish-inch long pieces of fondant with pointy ends.  I stuck one end of each tail under the back/bottom of the cake, and I brought the other end around the side so that the tails could be seen from the front of the cake.  Then I pinched them together in various places to add some dimension.  For the knot, I rolled out a strip of fondant, rolled the sides under, and created a ball shape.  Then I pressed it onto the back of the cake (where the mask and tails came together), attaching it with piping gel.

And that's it!