Zelda Cake

I spend a whole Saturday making a birthday cake for my brother-in-law. Behold my Link’s Shield Cake:

I followed most of the instructions provided by Nerdy Nummies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nO54RZeblQ), though I had to figure out a few things on my own. If you want to make this cake, please remember the following tips before you get started:

1. Find an image of the shield online and print it. You will need this image for the next tip.

2. Make a paper template of the shield and each of the decorations (such as the triforce).  It will take one 8.5 by 11 sheet and a bit of another sheet of paper to cover the length of the cake.

--- I cut out all the decorations from the image I printed and placed them on my shield template. This helped me visualize what I was going to do.
--- I used the shield template to cut the cake and the decorations templates to cut the fondant.

3. Prepare all the fondant ahead of time.  By the way, I had “sky blue” icing dye, which was a bit lighter than the blue I needed.  I added a few drops of black to darken my blue fondant. Remember to keep your fondant covered or it will dry out.

---Do not cut the fondant ahead of time.  Cut the shapes just before you’re ready to assemble the cake.

4. Use your own cake recipe. I used this one: http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/best-one-bowl-yellow-cake-recipe/ (delicious!).

This was a lot of work, but my brother-in-law was very happy, so the effort was worth it :-)