Coolest Alligator Cake

My youngest son just turned 4, and requested an alligator cake for his birthday. When I asked him what flavor he wanted it to be, he insisted on alligator flavor. I ended up doing the body/tail/legs in devil’s food and the head in vanilla cake, and the whole thing is filled and frosted with almond butter cream.

I started out making the vanilla cake for the head in a small oval cake pan, and also baked a 9 x 13 devil’s food cake for the rest of it. This cake goes end to end on a 13 x 19 cake board.

I torted the devil’s food cake and filled it. I cut one end off the oval cake so that it would nestle up against the body and then torted it and filled it with more filling at the “pointy” end so that the head is angled to look like the mouth is open.

I put it in the freezer for a little while to set up so that it would be easier to carve. I then carved the body into a slightly undulating shape and used the pieces that I cut off to form the four legs and the tail. I frosted the whole thing with butter cream as a crumb coat. I rolled out a piece of black fondant for the mouth and attached that to the butter cream. I used a giant marshmallow (cut in half) for the eyes and made the pupils and nostrils out of black fondant as well. I then put it back in the fridge to set.

I colored the frosting to three different shades of green and piped stars all over to cover the cake. I used pretzel pieces for the claws.

Can’t wait to find out what he thinks when he sees it tonight!