Cute Homemade Giraffe Birthday Cake for my Son

My eldest son chose a Giraffe Birthday Cake for his 9th birthday. This cake was based on a photograph that we took of a real giraffe during a family trip to South Africa in 2008. I traced the enlarged photo and used this as a template to cut the cake to size. The cake was a chocolate mud cake, and this proved to be a very easy cake to work with as it didn’t crumble much.

I froze the cake to make it easier to ice. I used two shades of light brown/beige for the body/head colour, and chocolate icing for the giraffe’s spots. If I had more time I would have used melted chocolate drizzled into shapes onto a baking tray and then cooled for the spots, but had to make do with icing. I think it came up okay. Strip licorice was cut to use as outlines on the nose, eyes and ears.

The cake is being used for two parties. Firstly, my son is having a small party with his friends and they will use the bottom part of the neck. We will then take the rest of the cake to his Nan’s house for our family party, hopefully with the head still in one piece!