Flash Forward - Noah's Ark Cake

Here's a pic of my most recent cake. My friend wanted a Noah's Ark theme, and as usual, I see a challenge. If you've seen any of my illustrations of animals, you'll realize I love quirky animals. This project was so fun for me. I had tried to make a boat before for my sister - a pirate ship to be exact, and it was a Fail. I thought pulling the fondant up from the bottom would work for some crazy reason, and didn't reinforce the cake. The weight of the fondant caused the cake to split in the middle - and this was for my sister! I wanted it to be great, but it wasn't in the cards that day. Shockingly I forgot my camera and didn't get any pics of the cake. Need to get them from my brother in law so I can upload them...note to self here.

So I found an example of doing the boat using individual planks, and I loved the look of it - much more realistic than using my edible markers to draw the plank lines. It was a bit time-consuming (shocking, I know), but it looked great. Needless to say, this cake is well-doweled to make sure it would not split like last time. Glad I did that too, because when my friend picked it up she told me she was driving two hours away for the shower. Nothing stresses me out about my cakes EXCEPT for the transport portion. Thankfully, the cake stayed intact (even the animals), but it did shift on the plate a bit. It weighed a ton.

I spent my Project Runway watching time making the animals, which were super fun to make. I'm not sure what my favorite ones are.
I'm glad she took the cake with her, because if this was a cake for my family I would have been tempted to keep the animals forever. I still have the Baby Jesus from my Christmas cake from last Christmas because I can't throw him away :) Yes, perhaps I am a cake accessory hoarder...