Coolest Platypus Cake
by Stephanie
(Seattle, WA)
Homemade Platypus Cake
My sister, brother-in-law and I made this Platypus cake for my son's first birthday. It was inspired by his favorite toy, a stuffed platypus from Australia that we named Hodgepodge. Despite our best efforts, Hodgepodge's bill took a beating during the teething months. Since our son loved to gnaw on the platypus so much, we thought we would give him a cake that he could really sink his teeth into, and he loved it!
This cake used 2 and 1/2 cake mixes. For the body, we baked two chocolate cake mixes in a large rectangular pan (roughly 5"w x 16"l x 4"h) that we purchased at a specialty cake shop. The pan can also be used for fire trucks and railroad cars. We used a knife to trim the body to look like a platypus, wrapped it in plastic wrap and foil and froze it for 4 days.
The day before the party, we thawed the body and baked another 1/2 chocolate cake mix in a round pan and cut out the tail from the round cake. We frosted the entire cake using whipped chocolate frosting. We followed up with dark chocolate fudge frosting squeezed from a pastry bag to make the fur. The bill and the webbed feet were made of fondant with a small amount of black food coloring.
