Coolest Dinosaur Birthday Cake Design

I made this Dinosaur Birthday Cake Design (sort of a stegosaurus) for my son’s 2nd birthday. Like many other submissions on this site (that’s where I got my ideas!), I used two 9″ round cakes. One was cut in half and the halves put together and stood on end to form the body. I carved the tail, neck, head, and legs/feet out of the other 9″ cake. It was a sort of try-as-I-go type of carving (not following a template – which is why the cheeks ended up so lopsided).

After I had the cake carved, I crumb-coated it with buttercream icing and refrigerated it overnight. Meanwhile, I made homemade marshmallow fondant and refrigerated that overnight as well. I carved/molded the tail spikes, back plates (putting toothpicks into the spikes and plates before they hardened so they would be easy to stick into the cake – the detailing in the plates was also done by simply pressing the side of a toothpick into it), eyes, eyebrows, teeth, toenails, etc out of fondant and let them dry out and harden overnight.

The next morning, I covered the cake in fondant, put all the details in place, and put the finished cake back into the fridge until the party.

The bone was made out of a bit of extra cake I made into an 8″ square, crumb-coated and covered in fondant the same way as the dinosaur.

This was the first time I’ve ever tried to carve a cake or make homemade fondant!