For my twin boy’s 6th birthday, they wanted a space theme, so I decided on a rocket cake. We had a big crowd coming, so I knew we could do something large and impressive. The cake requires a little bit of carpentry to get started.
The cake is elevated on an 8-inch wood circle from a craft store, to which my husband glued four 3-inch legs. We glued the feet to a plywood board, about 2-foot square. We drilled a hole in the middle of the wood circle (before gluing), and inserted a 3/8″ dowel to hold it all together. (I know you are supposed to dowel from the top down, but for some reason that scared me with this one, so I did it the opposite way).
I used gray fondant to cover the feet, forming rocket thrusters. I also covered the edge of the wood circle.
The rocket is three 8-inch layer cakes, each with straw supports in it, that we slid down the dowel to stack (I pre-holed my cardboard cake circles to make this easier). The cone is a fourth cake made in a large measuring bowl (use 1 1/2 cake mixes), with rice crispy to make the very top of the cone. All of it was covered in white icing before stacking, with touchups when assembled.
The fins are sugar cookies glazed in red icing and lined with royal icing. I used a cookie recipe that has no leavening to ensure they would keep their shape. I attached the fins with royal icing and also put a dollup at the tip on the board to hold them in place. All the decorations are fondant, except the “rivets” which are candy pearls. I put them on using a tweezer to keep my fingers from poking the icing. I think total height, including the legs, was about 22 inches.
We had to drive this cake about three miles to the party. I thought my heart would stop from the stress, but we made it, and all the kids had fun.
Do you have the cookie recipe you used for the fins? I have bad luck with sugar cookie recipes! For the icing, did you just use powdered sugar and milk?
Do you have the cookie recipe you used for the fins? I have bad luck with sugar cookie recipes! For the icing, did you just use powdered sugar and milk?