Yoda Cake

I have a confession. 

I’ve never seen Star Wars. 

None of them. Actually, that is a lie. I saw the first half of the first one (fourth one? The whole numbering system for that series is confusing.) two and a half years ago, but never got through the entire thing.

I get a lot of incredulous looks when people find out I’ve never seen them. Turns out there are a lot of movies that people my age grew up on that I somehow missed. I didn’t see the Princess Bride until I was twenty or so and I think some of the charm of that movie is lost when you see it as an adult (or almost-adult). I’ve seen one of the Indiana Jones movies and I’ve never seen Back to the Future. I know. Pick your jaws off the floor now. I dunno, maybe someday I’ll go on a three-day movie watching binge to get caught up on all this pop culture I seemed to have missed during my childhood. I’ll probably understand a lot more random references after that.

However, the youth of today are still being entertained by Star Wars, hence a request to make this Yoda cake for a 4 year-old’s birthday the other day. 

I started by making two sheet cakes. I cut out a Yoda-shaped template. Between the two sheet cakes, I was able to get two layers of ears and three layers for the head.

 I then carved out the shape of Yoda’s face with a small knife. This is a pretty terrible picture of the process, but Yoda now has eye sockets, cheeks, a nose, and a chin. 

After I was done carving, I covered him with a layer of chocolate icing. 

Then, because it was one in the morning, I forgot to keep taking pictures. Yoda got a layer of green fondant which I smoothed into all the nooks and crannies of his face. Then using some plastic gum paste tools, I added wrinkles and the final details. I used white fondant for his eyes and used food gel to give him brown eyes. For a final touch and to give his wrinkles a little more depth, I painted him with a layer of gel color diluted with vodka.

Yoda was done by 2 AM which I count as a win. Overall I was rather pleased with how he turned out and from what I’ve heard, so was the birthday boy!