Challenge #3 The Duck birthday Cake- COMPLETED!

Let me explain why a duck birthday cake...

Our birthday girl just loves ducks (or dux as she says). She can't get enough of them! She has a pink plastic duck which joins her in the bath each night and afterwards goes to bed with her. She LOVES feeding ducks and generally has a love of our feathered friends.

I had really great intentions to take pictures of every stage of the cake making process, but unfortunately hubby had to go to work with the SLR and I couldn't find the compact camera, but don't worry, he was back home by the time that the cake was finished.

The first thing that I did once I had decided to make a duck cake was scan the internet for ideas. There were lots of great designs but they were either ULTRA complicated or required special cake tins that I didn't possess and couldn't afford to hire. I decided it was time to design my own cake.

My first sketches were not very successful. Although the wee rascal immediately recognised them as a duck, hubby said they looked more like a chicken!

So I tried again using a different approach.  This time, I cut out two circles of baking paper, the same size as my cake tins. I turned one into the stencil for the body shape and the other one into the head shape. This time hubby said the plan looked more duck-like.

I then baked one 21cm cake and one 26cm cake using this lemon yoghurt cake recipe from The Waitakere Redneck's Kitchen YUM!!!

After leaving the cakes to cool, I cut them into shape, put a thin layer of icing on the cut areas to seal the crumbs and put the cake back in the fridge. A bit later, I gave the whole cake a nice thick layer of butter icing and used fruit jellies to create a wing and an eye.

VOILA! We have a duck cake! It may not be the most professional looking of cakes, but I'm proud of it.