HOW TO MAKE A LEPRECON CAKE

I am the Vice~President of a cake club I belong to. We met up once a month for a meeting, pot luck and a demo. It's my job to book the person to do the demos.

Tonight the demo was how to make this darling little Leprecon cake for Saint Patrick's Day.

Some of you may have heard of or seen Susan Carberry. She is a popular cake decorator and has appeared in several magazines, on Food Network TV and her classes are in great demand.

She was kind enough to to say yes to me when I emailed her and asked her to do a demo at our cake club.


She started out by showing us how to carve the cake to look like a pot. Then she told us to put the fondant (a rolled icing) on the cake upside down.

Doing this will be easier and in the end look neater on this cake.

Then she flipped the cake right side up and here she is rolling a long rope out of more black fondant.

She uses a paddle to make the rope even and not show marks from your fingers.

Add the rope to the top of the cake and you have your black pot. By rolling a bit more fondant into a triangle shape with rounded corners and adding them to the bottom of the cake you have what looks like feet to hold the pot.

The pot is the only thing made out of cake. The actual Leprecon is made out Rice Crispy treats that get formed into the arms and head.

In order to make the Leprecon look smooth when you cover him with fondant she coats the Rice Crispy Treats with melted white chocolate. The chocolate fills in the bumps and makes a smooth service to cover with fondant.

By using more fondant in flesh tones she formed the ears and nose. She then added a beard and hair in a red/orange color. Taking a tool she made marks in the fondant so it looks like hair. Then she makes the eyes.

The hat is also formed out of Rice Crispy Treats and then attached to the head with a wooden dowel to hold it together. The finished head gets stuck into the cake.

Be sure to use a long dowel so it goes all the way through the cake and rests on the cake board. This will keep the head from sinking into your cake.

Do the same with the arms and add the hands to the arms by putting a bit of white chocolate on and around the dowels to help hold them in place.

Add buttercream icing all around the Leprecon and fill in the top of the pot. Place gold foil chocolate coins all over the buttercream.

It now looks like the Leprecon is popping out of the pot of gold!

Susan made this cake in less then an hour. She is SOOOOOOO fast! It would take most cake decorators all day to make this cake. Susan is amazing! We were really lucky to have her come visit our group tonight.

So what do you think? Are you going to give it a shot and make this cake for Saint Patrick's Day this year? I may give it a shot. After all, why not? The worst thing that can happen is you have cake to eat!