I love the story of Noah's Ark, and as a cake decorator, it is a theme that lends itself to so many creative designs! If you've been a part of this site for any length of time, you know that we love cheerful cakes, and that I also have a soft spot for figure modeling & cake toppers. Noah's Ark cakes with their sweet animals two by two are perfectly suited for many different occasions, but especially for young birthdays and baby showers.
I also love the "surprise inside" rainbow cake! This represents the rainbow that appears at the end of the Noah's ark story, but also highlights a really popular trend in caking right now. Everyone loves rainbow cakes :0)
In Part 1 of our Noah's Ark cake, I demonstrate how to make the animals~ hippos, pandas,giraffes, alligators, and a small dove. (The lion and elephant tutorials are in past videos.) --CLICK HERE for part 1.
In this video (Part 2), I demonstrate how to make a cake with rainbow colored layers, and how to make the ark! I hope that you enjoy it!
Materials
Double Batch white almond sour cream cake (doctored mix) . Use your cake recipe of choice that can withstand a small amount of carving. (We used this to make two 6 inch cake layers for the ark, and 6 thin 8 inch layers.)
Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream -Enough to fill and frost a fairly tall 8 inch cake, and to crumb coat the ark.
Chocolate and White Fondant-- I used Chocolate Satin Ice kneaded into white Satin Ice to achieve the shade of brown that I wanted for my ark. You do not have to use chocolate fondant at all, but it did make things move a little more quickly.
Scriber Needle, Sharp Knife, Toothpick--Any of these would be helpful in creating the look of the wooden boards that made up the ark.
Rice Cereal Treats--We used 3.5 (pre-packaged) to create the "house" on top of the ark.
Coloring Gels used: We tinted 6 bowls, each filled with 1 ¼cups white cake batter. Colors used (All are Americolor Brand): Americolor Red Red, Americolor Orange, Lemon Yellow, Electric Green, Sky Blue, Regal Purple.
Bubble Tea Straws- I placed four beneath the ark (which was on it's own cardboard cake circle)
Cardboard Cake Circles- I used two...one beneath the 8" cake and one beneath the 6" ark.
***In the video, I note that I first tried making the base of the ark with a Wilton half ball pan. We had completed the ark and placed the animals when we looked over after a few hours and the ark has SPLIT in half and was ruined. (ARRRGGGH!) - As I explained in the video, I think that there were two main contributing factors. The first is that my giraffes and flamingos had long anchors which would have been fine if not for the fact that the cake was tapered and the animals on the outer edge were a little weighty. Perhaps using the "durable" recipe would have made things better, but I didn't want to take any chances with my second try. With my second try, I did not taper my cake and I used 6" layers. The final result to me is every bit as cute as the first try, but without the risk!
Let me know if you have any questions! I hope that you enjoy the tutorial!
Hi Guerda- Are you able to see it now? (You may need to refresh your screen first.)
yes I can see it now. Thank you!
Good, you're welcome ;0)
Did you attach the roof to the rest of the little house with anything? I'm wondering if the rice crispy treats are sticky enough on their own to make it stick. Thanks! I love this cake!
Hi Sara--So funny, I do not even remember--I'm surprised that I didn't discuss that. Anyway, a little melted chocolate or candy melts would be a sure fire strong glue if you are worried...but I am almost positive that I would have just spread a little piping gel in between (if anything). Because that last row of shingles hangs onto the "house", it helps to ensure that things stay in place.
Hi Melissa. Love your work!
I have a project for 12" rainbow cake with rolled fondant. Wonder with the 6 layers of rainbow layered with buttercream able to hold rolled out fondant? What is the suggestible height for each layer?
Splendid work! Love love love!!!
Rdgs,
Jac
Hi Jacqueline!
I'm glad that you are making this! We used white almond sour cream cake (doctored mix) which is stable enough for fondant.
In our video, we used approximately 1 1/3 cups of batter per pan for our 8 inch pans, which gave us final baked layers that were a little under an inch in height. Our final cake was probably around 5-5.5 inches. -
For your 12" cake, I'm guessing that you would need somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 cups or so of batter per pan. Good luck!
Thanks Melissa