How to Make A Star Wars Yoda Cake

16 Jan

I looked. I looked at dozens, I’m sure even hundreds of photos on Pinterest of various cakes… my son, who has been getting into Star Wars (Daddy may have something to do with that) wanted a Yoda cake.

And we couldn’t talk him into an R2-D2 cake. It had to be Yoda.

So… it was time to roll up the sleeves, sit, close the eyes, imagine, think up some possibilities of how in the world to make this thing. We didn’t have to buy anything special; last year’s Stegosaurus cake taught me you just have to envision things and get a little creative about putting some shapes together.

Since I didn’t find any model Yoda cakes (not saying one doesn’t exist… but I never came across something close to what I was imagining, a stand-up 3D Yoda that wasn’t lame), I set out to make one but to also capture the process for others.

Posing, getting into character, planning the angle to look and where to position weight

Out of four large cupcakes, I used two for the base, cutting a straight edge so the fit together (later separating them slightly)

Work a hole in one of the four large cupcakes, to hold the toy Light Saber. (these come with M&Ms in the bottom)

Rice Krispies will be the material for the head. Here, I’m shaping the ears in the pan. Was certainly going for “exaggerated” but over night, they fell apart. I had to back ’em down the next morning.

I sculpted Yoda’s head modeling after some images on the internet. The blue is from a ‘cake pen’ I used for some guide lines (got smudged when working with it, not a big deal)

My wife baked all the cakes. I had her whip up a “base” on which Yoda could stand

the light tan and brown are the same recipe: 2 parts yellow, 1 part blue, 1 part red (yellow+blue=green, red neutralizes green)

I just go natural here… no spreader, just finger painting the icing onto the head

The noise-maker for sleepy time was used to harden the icing. We were under the gun at this point.

Don’t use the natural green. It’s too primary and bright. Use the 2parts-yellow-1-part-blue mixture again. Then just brush it onto the head to give Yoda a face.

With much attention for aligning the skewer, I went ahead and committed to pushing it all the way through his head. Next, came getting it onto the cake.

Finito. Final steps: use wire clipper to cut all the bamboo skewers and toothpicks holding things together. Carefully move to your party table. Rejoice