My Grandfather's83rd Birthday, His Bible Cake and a Home Made Fondant Recipe

I have been making "fancy" cakes for about 2 years. I like to make my own buttercream and fondant and experiment with recipes. I have made my daughters' birthday cakes and a few for my brother and husband. I made two cakes for my uncle's birthday back in August and my aunt asked me if I would make my grandfather's cake. He just turned 83 January 25th. We had his birthday dinner at my mom's after church this past Sunday.

When I make a cake I use various recipes. For this cake I made two batches of a basic white cake but added some fresh shredded coconut and almond extract to the batter. I made two square cakes and then trimmed them to look like 1/2 of a book.  I then put them together. I then freeze the cakes overnight so they are easier to carve/ butter cream.

The cross is made from gum paste (which I have not yet mastered) so I purchased it white at our local cake supply store.

The butter cream recipe stays the same each time. 5 sticks of butter

The last step is to leave as plain butter cream or flavor it. I flavor it most of the time. This time I added a whole can of chocolate frosting (pre-made). I don't like coming up with my own chocolate to add to it, it always tastes funny. I make the butter cream from scratch but just add in extra chocolate frosting for the flavoring.

I put a smear of buttercream on the cake board to act as glue. Then I unwrapped both cakes and placed them in the center of the board. I put another layer of coconut on top of the cake and then covered the whole cake in the chocolate buttercream. A lot of it!

 I cut the edges of the "book" at a slant to mimic the pages being laid down with a slight angle. I also billowed the buttercream to show the crease in the center of the book and the pages lying out from the center binding.

It was then covered in a white buttercream that I hand made.

Mini marshmallows (454 grams)
2 Tablespoons water

1. Microwave those two ingredients for one minute. Take out and stir with a wooden spoon covered in Crisco.
2. Microwave again for 1 minute stir. This time all the marshmallows should be melted and the mixture should resemble marshmallow cream.
3. Add 5-6 cups of confectioner's sugar one cup at a time. After each cup use the spoon to stir it in. The confectioner's sugar makes the mixture hard to mix and eventually after all of it is put in, not sticky.
4. Simply roll out the mixture with Crisco covered rolling pin onto a confectioner's sugar covered board or counter top.
5. Let the decorating begin!

After I covered my cake with fondant, I used gel colors and mixed in a little water to make "paint".  I then used my fondant tools to smooth out the cake and create lines in the side to make pages.

 I used a thin mixture of ivory gel and water to create an "antique" look to the pages. I then used a thin tip of my tool to "write" the words of the Bible verse onto the left. I filled in the creases the tool made with blue gel mixed with water.

I then cut out leaves from fondant with a leaf punch, used my tools to create a veining effect and painted them with a mixture of green and brown gel and water. I then used a little water to "glue" them to the cake. I used a gold gel writer to write the gold lettering on the cake. I finished it off by "dusting" the entire cake with edible glitter. I accidentally smeared two spots because it wasn't fully dry. :( but I tried to cover it up as best as I could.  Here is the final product.

 My youngest decided to help Grandpa blow out his candles. We even relit one for her so she could blow it out.