Cool Beetles, Ladybugs and Butterflies Cake

So, in December of 2013, my nephew wanted a Beatles cake. He had come to love their music and so had the Beatles themed party, cake and all. His younger sister, who loves him very much, wanted a similar cake. So since she is a warrior princess, we changed the Beatles to beetles and threw in some ladybugs and butterflies as well.

This cake was a blast to make. It was my first real scultped cake. The sculpt of the body wasn’t too difficult. I used a 9×13 cake and a smaller 6 inch round for the head- both chocolate. I cut out a large shape of a beetle on paper, laid it on the cakes and then cut out the shape from the cake. Then I covered the cakes with a delicious chocolate ganache. The hard part was decorating the beetle with fondant and getting his features right. I covered the beetle with fondant and then painted it with food coloring.

The first issue I had was with his eyes. They were way too far forward on his head, so he looked like some kind of weird turtle, since I hadn’t put his wings on yet. The rest of him was all green.

Then came the wings… oh my the wings. I wish I had taken a picture of the first ones I had done. They honestly looked like two chicken breasts sitting on the back of a bug. It was so odd. Color and everything- cooked chicken breasts. The morning before I was to take the cake up to my niece, I decided to rip the wings off the beetle and start over with them. I’m so glad I did. I reshaped the wings and recolored them and got them looking much better!

Afterwards I included some chocolate butterflies and some cake pop ladybugs to decorate around the beetle. When my niece saw it she said, “Aunt Christy! That’s so cool… and so disgusting!! I love it!” Thankfully the cake was a hit with children and adults a like. My brother, who is not much of a fan of sweets, loved the chocolate cake and the ganache and said it was the best of chocolatey-ness. I think it turned out well for my first sculpted cake.

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