Bravada!
I like to make cakes for my four little boys on their birthdays. I never get to spread my creative juices on girl themed cakes, so when I was asked by a friend to make a birthday cake for her 7 year old Brave fan…I decided to take advantage of this rare opportunity.
Tash is not only a Brave fan, aspires to be a tough arrow shooting Merida! And the request came in to do a Brave themed cake. Being an amateur cake creator, I was a little intimidated, but the ideas started streaming on how to do a design that I could manage with some sanity. I did not want to try people, so the bears were the next best thing. I figured I could manage three little bears. The first thing I needed to do, of course, was watch the movie. So, so cute and I loved it.
I decided to capture Tash’s newly found interest in archery by using that as a focus of my cake theme coupled with the mischievous three “bear” brothers. Tash doesn’t like chocolate (too bad) so I went with a two layer cake design using French vanilla cake with fresh strawberry champagne cream filling and a butter pecan cake with a caramel cinnamon butter cream filling.
I used fondant to cover and create all my characters and details. I used a pretzel stick and sugar cone piping green icing with star tip to create fir trees. I created the target with fondant and used mini pretzel sticks tied together with fondant rope and left to harden overnight. I created the bears with their favorite treat biscuits from fondant. The bottom layer has a stone wall effect that I dyed the fondant grey with black color paste and a roll out mold for the stone look. I then used some black paste diluted with water the lightly brush more color on rocks and bottom layer in crevices for a more detailed look. I also used some orange diluted paste color to also add a little dimension to the wall.
I cut out by hand the letters for Tash’s name and used a sharp edge knife to make a quilted look. I also brushed them with a diluted yellow tone to give a gold coloring. I made vines by rolling fondant and free hand made a tear shape and then folded them with a knife line to create a leaf. I made the flowers again with fondant and making a tiny ball in center. Then added some details with a piping tip the create grass patches.
The bow and arrow were the most trouble. The bow went easily using two shades of brown and loosely weaving colors to create a grained look then used a spaghetti noodle piece for the string. I put them together and let them dry hard overnight. Arrow was ridiculous. I made an arrow by rolling fondant then made a few feathers from yellow fondant and used a knife tip to give detail to the feathers. Then I used sugar glaze to attach them to the shaft. I attached the sign with cute little decorative top toothpicks. You have to make sure to let all characters and detail fondant harden overnight so you can add without breakage.
Tasha loved loved the cake. She would not let anyone eat her bears, as she wanted to keep them to play with like toys. It was a great hit and her friends loved the Brave theme. She got her first bow and arrow for her birthday!
I had a blast getting to make a “girl” cake even if it was kind of tomboyish!
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