I was asked to make a cake for a friend’s son who was going into the Army. He is going in as infantry and headed to the desert once he has completed his training. I felt like I should do something that would be good enough for a young adult as well as the adults that would be at the party sending him on his way. I captured the process as I decorated the cakes for the showing. The pictures are included and show the process of putting this Homemade Army in the Desert Cake all together. What is missing is the fact that the left side of the cake is chocolate deluxe 3 layers high with each layer on its board to prevent sag, then fondant covered with the tan fondant I made at home and colored to represent the desert. The right side of the cake is red velvet with the same type of setup. I used basic butter cream icing in between and as the layer to rest the fondant on for shaping it all out. Everything turned out pretty good. Fondant is marshmallow based.
The dry creek bed and the ramps on and off the cake are marshmallow bites (German chocolate and pina colada). To fill in the gaps so you couldn’t see the board, I crumbled oatmeal cookies and dropped them over to fill all the holes. The marshmallow bites at the ends of everything are stuck in place with brown icing to keep them from moving as well as anything else they are holding in place. On top of the cake are sprinkles of brown sugar and oatmeal cookies and I chopped some caramels up to make small boulders everywhere. The tank tracks across the cake are made using the grass tip but just dragging it along so the lines never break off. I then sprinkled a little more brown sugar on the tracks to give it a more included feel. 2 tanks and 7 Army soldiers fill out the design with a mine sweeper out front and a guy covering him, 2 mortars with associated radio guy calling it all in, one guy near the back tank watching behind and the always present guy that is just standing there doing nothing (we all know who this is – think about it).
All in all, it was well received and I had a great time making it. The cakes were not home-made but I always change things up and am usually adding to the mix. This time was no exception and the cakes tasted way better than they looked!
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