Star Wars Darth Vader Cake!

Okay, the final installment of the "I made a lot of cakes over the past 2 weeks" series, lol!  3 Cakes in 2 weeks may not be a lot to some people, but I am a part-time cake decorator.  I have a 2 year old who demands my attention most of the time!  Usually I won't agree to more than one cake a week... but for a friend I made an exception :)

This is actually the first of the 3 cakes I made for my friend.  For his birthday we were going to do an Avengers/Captain America cake... but at the last minute, while he was picking out party supplies with his dad, he changed is mind and wanted Star Wars, Darth Vader specifically!

His mom and I agreed that it might not be "pretty" to have all of the guests running around with black mouths, if I were to make a "3D" Vader... that and I didn't have much time/notice after the birthday boy changed his mind!  So this is what I came up with.... I don't have many pictures unfortunately, just one I snapped at the party...

For the cake, which was an 8" chocolate cake filled with ganache and chocolate buttercream, I used the same technique as in my Tie Dye Fondant Tutorial Video (I'll post it below, again).  Then I took some edible pearl airbrush paint (cause it's already liquidy) and mixed just a tiny amount of black gel paste in to make it look more silver (you could use super pearl mixed with vodka to get a similar consistency paint).  Then I took a toothbrush (NEW, CLEAN and only for cake decorating of course!), dipped it in my paint mixture and dragged my finger over the bristles to "splatter" the cake to give it a silvery, starry effect.  I didn't want to go with star cut-outs because they can look a bit cartoon-y and I wanted the stars to look more subtle and "galaxy-like".

The lettering was gut from fondant and dusted with yellow petal dust for a shaded effect, similar to what you see on some of the Star Wars logos.

And Darth Vader's head... well, this is my first real attempt at sculpting.  I was tempted to just go to the store and buy a toy to stick on top.  That was actually my back up plan all along but it actually turned out okay!  He's made from rice cereal treats  that I covered generously with modeling chocolate (or "candy clay") and sculpted.  It took me the better part of a day, but he actually looked pretty good by the end!  I just wish I had been able to do a better job smoothing the surface.. but regardless the cake was a huge hit at the party!

I wish I had thought to take pictures of video of the process!  I hope my description has given you enough idea of how I created this cake, in case anyone is inspired by my design :)

This is the technique I used for the fondant... I just used lots of blue with a little black and I tiny amount of white....

Happy Caking :)