Leopard Print Cake ..Apt for Hubby's bday

I'm a Gemini --and I live up to the reputation of my zodiac...I get bored easily ...actually that is not entirely accurate  ...what I  mean is that repetition bores me ...I have to try new and varied things to satiate my zodiac !! The same  goes for my baking as well ....maybe now I can understand my deep fascination for it ....it gives me a platform to fulfill my insatiable lust for  trying varied things ..the thrill it gives me as I embark on a new baking project is hard to put into words ..Baking  excites me and stimulates me and gives me a creative high ! Okay, you guys get the picture !!! 

Time to come back to this particular blog post which is about hubby's birthday cake . Having gone the floral, fresh fruit and geometric way for his  b'day cakes in the past .. this year was looking for some  fresh ideas . Also, please remember what I disclosed above. Luckily , my quest for some unique ideas came to an end when I noticed his current obsession with watching big cats on screen. He is not much into watching TV but due to a broken bone, he has ample time on his hands and fills it up with watching animal documentaries. So, a leopard print cake seemed to a perfectly apt choice.

And it was a hit ! So, without  further adieu let's talk about what all I had to do to come up with exotic leopard print cake.I started off by baking 2 pineapple cream cakes...won't be going into the recipe for the same as this blog post is primarily about decoration. You may go in for any cake flavoring ...even store bought cake mixes will do the trick. Next, I made some butter cream frosting using the Wilton recipe .It is the recipe that I am most comfortable with and always give the expected results. I covered both cakes with butter cream frosting . Notice how I didn't get overboard smoothing it as it was to be covered with fondant layer next anyways.

I used store bought fondant for the next layer. Took it out from it's container, kneaded it and rolled it big enough to cover the cake board as well. Didn't want the board print to contrast with the leopard print, so covering it was essential. Plus it also gave me a place to put it in the birthday greeting. 

The smooth  fondant layer was the perfect "canvas" on which I started making the exotic leopard print. Here is what I had ready for the same -

• Wilton color brown
• Wilton color black
• pain brushes
• bowls for mixing
• vodka or lemon extract in a squeeze bottle for mixing .
• paper towels       

Started with the brown . With the help of a tooth pick , took some in a bowl and diluted with the vodka (seen in the squeeze bottle)  till you get the right consistency. If you don't wnat to use the vodka, lemon extract also serves the same purpose. I dipped  the paint brush  in the brown and started dabbing on the fondant layer to form "circles"  with were not symmetrically round.

 Leopard prints are not perfect circles so I had to make sure to not make them too "circly"or round. Kept on dabbing with the paint brush to make the shapes  in different sizes following no particular pattern .You can see that they all vary in size and are not perfectly round too.

Done with the brown covering the cake, followed the same procedure for diluting the black. Once, I achieved the  right consistency , started  outlining the brown circles with the black color in shapes of "C" and "O" making sure as to not complete the "O". You may also use the parenthesis () shape as well. 

Continued outlining the brown circles with the  black on the covered cake board leaving some space for the Birthday Greeting. With a narrow tip brush, managed to paint the text of the greeting as well. An exotic leopard print cake was ready for hubby! I really had fun decorating this cake and the results were amazing . Do give  it a try .....experiment with  other color combinations and share with me how it turned out !

The inspiration for this cake came from  youtube tutorial by Krazy Kool Cakes & Designs by Laura E. Varela-Wong.