Awesome Homemade Chips and Dip Cake for a Potluck

I made this Chips and Dip cake for a retirement potluck. The retiree was known for always bringing ruffled potato chips and onion dip to our potlucks, so I decided to make a cake version in his honor.

Making the Potato Chips

The first step for this cake was to make the chips. I added a small amount of yellow paste color to a batch of marshmallow fondant until the color was similar to a potato chip. I rolled the fondant to 1/8″ thickness or so, and then used a circle cookie cutter to cut the chips.

Then I stretched them by hand to more irregular shapes. To create the ruffle look, I placed the rounds between two bamboo sushi rolling mats and pressed them together firmly.

Finally I arranged the chips on a piece of 1″ PVC pipe to dry so they would have a rounded look. As a final touch, I dusted some cocoa powder over the chips to create the look of seasoning and spots. They were dry enough to hold their shape after an hour or two. I then transferred them to a platter and allowed them to continue drying for 2 days. It took a couple of batches of chips to have enough for the cake.

Making the Cake

For the cake, I made four 9-inch chocolate rounds and iced and filled them with cream cheese frosting. I used a cardboard divider supported by dowels between the second and third layers, so the cake could be easily separated into two parts. I added some copper paste coloring to the remaining fondant to achieve a darker yellow-gold color for the sour cream tub and then covered the entire 4 layer cake in the fondant.

In addition, I had the label details printed on a sugar sheet at my local supermarket and applied the decorations directly to the fondant.

For the onion dip, I added green colored sugar crystals, to the remaining cream cheese frosting and applied it liberally to the top of the cake.