I’ve been excited about making this cake for so long. You may have seen over on my Instagram or Facebook page that a few months ago Hendrix turned one and I honestly don’t know where the time has gone. I loved every second of making this cake for Hendrix and I really wanted to share with you how I made it. So if you want to see, just take a look at the step by step video tutorial below.
Click below to watch how to make Hendrix’s Lion Cake ⇩
The cake
The cake is actually a 6 inch banana cake which is 6 inches in height. I knew even though I wanted the lion to be a little taller than the cake, I’d need quite a lot of height, to fit the lion on the front. One tip if you are planning a cake with a design on the front, it really helps to draw out what you want to create to scale before you start, this way you know you’ll have enough room to fit everything in. The cake was filled with some delicious white chocolate ganache, which I think really complimented the banana flavour.
Making the Lion
All the decorations on this cake are made from fondant, which I coloured with gel colours. For the lions mane and the tropical leaves I did add a small amount of floral paste to the fondant. The floral paste allows the fondant to firm up a little more than fondant on its own, and hold it’s shape, which really helped as these pieces were not stuck completely to the side of the cake.
To make the lions face I started with a 150g ball of fondant which I’d coloured using some ivory, brown and a little green gel colour (you’ll find links to all the tools I used at the end of the blog post). In the video you’ll see that I use my little finger to shape the front of the face, pulling out the sides for the cheeks.
I then added same balls of fondant for the ears and a little brown nose. For the eyes I used 5mm choco balls from a Happy Sprinkles mix. These worked perfectly, and really gave a soft toy kind of appearance.
Using a dresden tool to mark the fondant and some scissors to cut into the fondant you can really make the fondant look like fur. At this stage you could also use this technique to make a teddy too.
One thing that I always find brings cake toppers to life is edible dust. By brushing on different shades you can create shadows and highlights.
Once I was happy with the face I could start on the mane. As I mentioned above I added a small amount of floral paste to my fondant. I used 75g of fondant with 25g of floral paste. Colouring this with the same ivory, brown and green, but adding in some orange. One thing that was important with the mane was to cut down the weight. The head is quite heavy, so by cutting out the center of the mane, this really reduced the amount of weight that would be added to the side of the cake.
I then used my modelling tools to add the appearance of hair, before fixing this to the side of the head. I loved how the lion turned out and if you want to see how to make the rest of the cake, in the video tutorial you’ll also see how I also made the body for the lion, the leaves and the number topper. Plus how to fix these to the side of your cake.
Why I chose a lion cake
If you’re wondering why I picked a lion themed cake, picking the design for Hendrix’s cake was so hard, I had so many ideas and I actually felt so much pressure to get it right. Do you ever struggle with choosing a design? Throughout all my ideas there was one particular character that I knew I wanted to include in the cake and that was this lion. In the end I decided to keep it simple and make the cake all about him.
This lion is based on a little toy Hendrix has and this toy is so special to us. Some of you might have seen in my pregnancy announcement video that we went through IVF to have Hendrix. A few days before we started, Alex and I went out and brought a little lion cuddly toy, in the hope that if everything went well we could give this toy to our baby. He came to every single doctors appointment with us and when Hendrix was born he was right there waiting for him, and has been with him ever since. It felt really fitting he was the theme of Hendrix’s first cake.
Here is a photo of Hendrix with the finished cake on his birthday. This was right before we lit the little candle, which was actually a little close to the lions nose as it started to melt, opps!
Also a massive thank you to his Nana who is actually on the floor holding onto him, making sure he didn’t fall, so I could get this photo.
I really hope you enjoy the tutorial and will possibly be able to use some of these techniques from this tutorial in your own cakes. If you haven’t already don’t forget you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more Free cake decorating video tutorials.
Tools I used
Turntable: https://amzn.to/4aEgfuq
Clear Prop Option work board: propoptions.co.uk (CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off)
Acrylic Smoother: https://tidd.ly/46FISGq (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Paddle Smoother: https://tidd.ly/3QPpb7J (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Flexi Smoother: https://amzn.to/3UawMkj
10″ Olbaa Masonite Board: www.olbaa.uk/shop (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Fondant: https://amzn.to/3PXRr8L
Wilton Kelly Green Gel Colour: https://tidd.ly/49CPB3X (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Wilton Ivory Gel Colour https://tidd.ly/49CPB3X (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Colour Splash Leaf Green Gel Colour: https://amzn.to/3VTc4Xi
Colour Splash Sunflower Yellow Gel Colour: https://amzn.to/4cRlgl4
Colour Splash Brown Gel Colour: https://amzn.to/3PXi9P0
FMM Tropical Cutters: https://tidd.ly/3U8hlZQ (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Squires Floral Paste: https://amzn.to/3xwYfDW
PME Modelling Tools: https://tidd.ly/3PV9Fri (Lynz10 for 10% off)
Rose Petal Cutters: https://amzn.to/3VTW5IF (similar)
Black Choco Balls: https://tidd.ly/49vnuny (HappyLynz10 for 10% off)
Tiny Scissors: https://amzn.to/3TK2pQk
SugarFlair Chocolate Tint: https://amzn.to/4cOzVh1
SugarFlair Cream Tint: https://amzn.to/4aMZ5eb
SugarFlair Orange Tint: https://amzn.to/3TNMBfo
SugarFlair Yellow Tint: https://amzn.to/3vY1hk2
Edible Glue: https://amzn.to/3PUWjvt
Spray Ice: https://amzn.to/3U9PCbj
Plus if you’d like to see all my favourite cake decorating tools just click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/cakesbylynz
~ Please note that the links above are affiliate links. If you click the link and purchase any item through that link, I will receive a small commission from the website but this does NOT add any additional costs to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog x ~
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