10th Birthday Cake - Lego again!

You didn't think I'd forget to blog his birthday cake??

One of Husband's research student's wives had sent me picture of a cake that looked like it was made from Lego, the boy just happened to be hanging over my shoulder and said "COOOL! That's what I want for my birthday!"  Thanks Lisa!

I found the same picture on Google images but couldn't find much in the way of a tutorial so made it up as I went along.  The original cake was white, but I had an excess of green icing so I decided it would be a grassy cake, then kicked myself for not thinking ahead and including his new Lord of The Rings Lego and making it all Hobbit-y!

Anyway, usual cake recipe, not as perfect ganaching as I'd hoped to make those corners nice and sharp,  too sticky and not enough time to freeze it, then lots of fiddly measuring, cutting and shaping.  I was very grateful to have a helper to add all the nobbly bits on the top layer of bricks, or I'd have been there all evening!  Lots of figures were loaned to make the scene and Birthday Boy was very happy!

I pressed a Lego brick into the fondant to get the size and positioning right then my helper pressed out the nobby bits with this icing nozzle and we stuck them into place with a drop of boiled water.

Trickiest bit is putting that top roll of icing on without it tearing!

Naughty Ninja!

Aztec Guy looks more the part holding a sparkler!

Lego Ninjago Birthday Cake Tutorial

I've noticed that my post for Joseph's 9th birthday is always one of my most popular posts and I couldn't think why until I checked my stats and discovered that most people find it by googling Lego Ninjago Birthday Cakes.

I had a look at the post again and realized that while it might be a good pic, it's maybe not all that helpful so thought I would write a quick tutorial just in case people might need a little help.

So, here goes...

I started by baking three sponge cakes in 8" pans and in 1 8" pudding basin according to this recipe
12oz sugar
4oz butter
12 tsp vanilla
2 lge eggs and 1 egg white
2oz SR flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pint milk

Once the cakes were cooled, I stacked them together with butter cream and jam, then covered the whole thing in dark chocolate ganache made by bringing  21 fl oz cream to the boil and mixing in 2 lbs 10oz of dark chocolate.  This will make plenty to cover the cake and probably give you some left over to eat off the spoon...!  The reason for using the ganache is that it gives a really good, smooth finish for any decorating you want to do.  You should leave it overnight to cool, or put it in the freezer.  There are some tutorials on Youtube  if you need more help.

While the ganche was cooling I rolled out a rectangle of yellow fondant icing then cut some black icing to the shape of Zane's eyes, adding the little white glints.

I stuck the eyes to the yellow fondant and then the whole thing to the cake using some boiled apricot jam.  You can see in the picture below that it's a bit tacky. 

After that it was just a case of wrapping a large piece of white fondant around the cake to look like Zane's turban.  I used his new Zane for inspiration.  It's a bit messy but thankfully it looks ok!

Then just add one happy Birthday Boy!