The making of BB8 - Star Wars Birthday Cake by Amateur Cakers A.K.A Parents

Disclaimer:

Neither the husband, nor I are professional cakers - far from it in fact. But with the help of one Youtube video, borrowed baking tools, a little know-how and a husband who had way more confidence in the project than I did, here we are with our first ever relatively cool looking fondant cake - presenting the 7 year old's Star Wars BB8 Birthday Cake. (Drumroll, please!)

This was a pretty ambitious project for us, especially since we started googling cake ideas (desperately) a week before the 7 yo's surprise birthday party. This year, I sorta had made up my mind that I will bake a simple cake for him to cut on his actual birthday (see below) and order a cake for his party. A week before his party we went to our local bakery to check out birthday cake designs and order it. As we flipped through the pages, disappointment started creeping in. There were just pages of sheet cakes, nothing fancy just sheet cakes. Now don't get me wrong.. I have nothing against sheet cakes but the only ones that we liked in their catalog were animal and dinosaur and sea creature themed ones and we did not want those cakes. We wanted cool looking Star Wars themed cakes. Period.

Anyhoo, long story short, after reading - "The actual cake might vary from the pictures depending on the cake artist" - or something like that, one too many times, we left the bakery disappointed.

By the time we reached home, I knew for sure that there loomed not one but two cakes to be baked in my near future. One would be a simple frosted cake for him to cut on his birthday (I made good use of an early birthday gift of Star Wars figurines, as you can see)  and the other one a 'cool' looking cake. Hence ensued the frantic search for Star Wars themed Cake. The rest is history. 

I will not lie, I was ready to give up even before we started - more than once. But the husband couldn't be budged, he had made up his mind & I am so glad that some of his confidence rubbed off on me and we pulled this cute cake off in under 2 days. 

Day 1 (Two days before the party) : The making of BB8 - Star Wars Birthday Cake

While I baked the cakes in 8 inch (2) and 6 inch ball cake pans, the husband cut out the details from fondant. He used Wilton gel colors to tint the white fondant. 

The cakes took me almost 3 hours to mix, bake, cool, fill with buttercream and then I hit it generously with coffee syrup mixture and finally crumb coated with ganache and stuck it in the fridge to chill for an hour. It took me another hour to cover the 3 cakes in ganache - telltale signs of an amateur baker, right there! I put the baked cakes in the fridge for the night. Please excuse the mess I made. 

Note: In retrospect, we should have let the cut-out fondant dry on a curved surface (like a upside down big bowl) - that way it would have been easier to paste it on BB8's curvy round body without the fear of cracking it. 

Day 2 (One day before the party) : The making of BB8 - Star Wars Birthday Cake

After waving good-bye to the 7 year old and a quick run to the store to but last minute party supplies, we came back home to doll-up the ganached cakes. The husband got down to working right away while I tried my best to document the step-by-step process. Scroll down to see the pictures.

Notes: (click on the links for more information)

• We inserted 5 dowels in total. One long enough to hold the head and 4 cut to size and used to stabilize the cake.
• We used Wilton Silver Mist Spray to spray the grey fondant cut-outs for a shinier look
• We used No taste Red & Black from Wilton Gel Icing Colors, set of 12 - for the gray fondant we used little black gel color, and kept adding more till we reached the desired shade.
• We used 8 inch Ball Cake Pan for the body
• We used 6 inch Ball Cake Pan for the head (borrowed from friends)
• We used The Mat for rolling out the fondant (borrowed from friends)
• We used 20 inch Wilton Rolling Pin for rolling out the fondant (borrowed from friends)
• We used Wilton Fondant Smoother
• We used round cookie cutters, pizza cutter, Wilton fondant modelling set, 2 packs of Wilton white fondant.
• I used my trusted fudgy chocolate cake recipe (tripled, recipe here). There was some left over 
• Chocolate Ganache (recipe coming up soon)
• Ermine Buttercream - recipe here
• Graham crackers pulsed in the food processor for the sand. 
• To make the eyes shiny, the husband brushed it with watered down raspberry jam - he picked up the trick from somewhere, perhaps another Youtube video!
• A template from the internet to help with the cut-outs

BB8 - Star Wars Birthday Cake - All Done!

Youtube Video Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksIcq6TTI8&t=629s