Space Wolf Cake

[Thornblood]

Recently I created a cake in the shape of a MkVII marine helm, and it was surprisingly easy, and very difficult at the same time. I thought I would give you guys a quick how-to and why.



Ok, so I work for a church and do alot of the youth work. As it turns out one of the girls is an amazing baker and makes brilliant cakes (much to the youth groups joy, although my belly is getting bigger). Her school had a cake making competition, and despite hers being by far the best, she lost as it had simple icing sugar dusting top and the cakes were only judged on their decoration. Me, with all the warhammer modelling skills at my disposal, and a degree in Illustration decided to help her out as all the others in the younger half of the school (her category) had obviously had alot help from parents. So Christmas saw her win with the three kings (sod the penguin ice-skating that won, what's that got to do with christmas? Winter I'll grant you but not christmas, it could have at least had a santa hat) with some added modelling skills from myself. The girl taught me a whole load of stuff about decorative icing and I even found myself watching an episode of 'Ace of Cakes', which was quite inspiring as it was for the Kung Fu Panda 2 premier and they made model of all the characters made of icing. Nonetheless the girl won her age group in her school competition and whilst I engineered ideas and helped her with the first of the kings she had made the third one all by herself.



A friend from my old gaming group had a birthday on the horizon (I say old, I dont have a new gaming group, its just that I moved to a county on the other side of london). It being the 29th of Feb, the date only turns up once every 4 years so we thought we would go to town a little. Whilst another friend organised a BBQ and a massive Costco trip for meat, I shotgunned the cake (not literally). I would partialy like to blame our ambition for food that weekend on epicmealtime. I did spend a while trying to work out wether it was appropriate to have a bacon strip layer in the cake, but decided against it, as I was maybe already being too adventurous.

Construction Arriving back home at my parents house (near where this friend lived) my own mum, who I had talked the plan through with had made a largiush victoria sponge. A quick trip to Tesco supplied me with two more small Victoria sponge cakes and I quickly stacked these up and glued them together with what I use as glue (icing sugar and water- make it thick). Grabbing a bread-knife (important to use the correct knives- breadknives also very good for cutting polystyrene for scenery) I carved the rough shape of a marines helmet. As you can see the big sponge at the bottom makes the wide rim to the marines helmet and starts to make up the 'snout'. The top cake however forms the upper head and sharp 'brow' line, with the middle one being the most difficult to carve. With the leftover offcuts I constructed and glued (with the icing/water mix) a better 'snout' shape, the pipes and the 'mohawk-vent' on top. Infact I had to do this several times as family members kept eating offcuts. I pressed my thumbs into make indentations for the eyes to go into. Note: at this point I did not make the cheekbones, they come later.



Icing With shop-bought ready to roll icing, I kneaded in blue and black food colouring- this is an long, slow process and you need plenty of icing sugar to stop it getting to sticky. I also made two shades of grey. I started with the snout/mouth vent at the front, rolling the icing out on icing sugar to stop it sticking to the work-surface. After this the shadow grey colour was rolled out and draped over the 'face' area and with a sharp knife (not the breadknife, a small kitchen knife) I cut the front vent shape. With wet (from water) hands I pushed the icing into shape. It became evident the thing needed cheekbones so I made two identical triangular lumps and pushed them to shape. Then with water blended the icing cheekbones into the faceplate. Done. The rest is easy- Big sheet draped over, cut of the overlaps and folds because the head is a weird shape, push into recesses with hands. Again lots of water and blending when there is a tear or two areas need to be joined. Grey on the eyes then smaller grey for the red lenses. Grey for the pipes and inside the mohawk-vent-crest thing. Shadow grey colour for each side of the pipe and the technical looking gubbins. With the end of a stick (from something catering-like from my mums kitchen) I pushed rivet holes. With the short sharp knife I carved in extra details. I tried the Wolf skull on a diamond shape but it didnt work out too well. After a play with a few options, there is the skull bdge on the forehead just overlapping the diamond shape.

Painting Now here's the really clever bit. The following morning, once dry with a citadel large brush (a new one, that hadn't been in paint or my mouth) I dipped it in the black food colouring and did all the black lining, just like on a normal marine. it covered up alot of mistakes. I was able to paint all sorts on it, including the birthday date, names, slogons, a silouette of a wolf, a space wolf warrior, the trinity/odin symbol and the wyrding mark. All the rivet holes got a blob of black in them too. The writing is kinda Norse runes. Because the 'snout' was looking a bit too long it got runes on it to take the focus off the length and on something else. I could have spent hours on this bit, got out food colouring and really gone to town, but I was on a time limit.



Time The build time was about half an hour to 45 mins. The icing time was pushing two hours. Then it needed overnight to dry. Then the blacklining and details were an extra hour the following day.

Whilst it took a little time to plan, I had spent a fair amount of time on london transport getting back to my parents home so had plenty of time to work through things and work out obstacles and what would and wouldn't work. After a quick shop the whole thing was pretty painless, despite being a very difficult shape. It had some odd lumps where I hadn't managed to get things completely smooth on the cake layer beneath the icing. In some cases the icing completely covered the problems, in other it made them look worse.

Very pleased with the project, as was the recipient and the little gaming group back where I grew up that attending the birthday shenanigans. We ate the back half of his head then and there after presenting the cake with a mohawk of candles.

Really fun little hobby project, and as a bonus, I saw it to completion (a rarity) and I don't have any little grey plastic men crying because I cant be bothered to paint them.

I recommend trying this. Its not a big cash investment and if it goes wrong, its still edible- you can eat the mistakes and then not have to live with it. Unlike my boss-eyes librarian model.

[gwensdad]

(Must...resist...Portal-crossover...reference...)

THE IMPERIAL CAKE IS A LIE!

I wonder if making a custom pan would be hard to do for the basic helm shape. Or if a Mk6 would be easier.

[WC_Dave]

Now I want one for my BDay!

[Thornblood]

I think making a heatproof pan would be pretty tough to do, and also the details and raised bits would burn.

However if you could make a few moulds to pour cake mix into and then assemble this bits it could work. (you would have a shorter cooking time on the thinner bits).

[Fellend]

This is just all kinds of awesome, kudos to you for attempting, and successfully creating such a masterpiece =)

(Seriously? You gave that away to someone you don't sleep with? I'm amazed)

[victoryd5]

MMMMM thats delicious.

[Mystery.Shadow]

MMMMM thats delicious.

Everyone who eats that cake is required to make Tyranid noises when they eat it.

Nomnomnomnomnomnomnom!!

[slipknotzim]

thats really creative and it looks tasty to boot

[Carlsson]

Mmm tasty!

[Silverclaw]

Yummy...

that is so cool...

and looks delicious