Star Wars Cakes: Tauntaun Guts with Summer Berries
How to Make a Star Wars Cake: Tauntaun Guts with Summer Berries! (Tweet this)
This cake is based on a famous scene in one of the proper Star Wars films (Empire Strikes Back): Luke Skywalker, riding a Tauntaun, gets trapped in a blizzard while patrolling around the rebel base on the icy planet Hoth. In a favourite scene of little boys of all ages, he survives by killing his Tauntaun and climbing into its stomach for the night to keep warm.
I was inspired to make a Tauntaun cake when I saw this awesome Tauntaun sleeping bag on Thinkgeek.com
A perfect subject for cake decorating, I thought. Especially for the Cub Scouts cake auction 🙂
How to make this Star Wars Tauntaun cake:
Make a Square Cake
Make up a plain white / vanilla cake recipe to fit your square tin
Here's my basic recipe, which I think I scaled up 3 times for a 6 inch tin:
- 4 oz self raising flour
- 4 oz light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 4 oz margarine or butter
- 1 tsp baking powder
Mix all the stuff and bake at around 350°F
or click here for a high altitude cake recipe from allrecipes.com.
Royal Icing Snow
Make some snowdrifts on your baking tray using royal icing, dragging it with a fork to make it look windswept. Bear in mind that some royal icing recipes take quite a long time to dry. Here is the recipe I used, from allrecipes.co.uk:
- 2 egg whites
- 500g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Beat the egg whites lightly, adding enough sugar and lemon juice to get the right consistency for the icing to hold its shape.
Decorations and Equipment
Marzipan
Icing sugar / powdered sugar for rolling out the marzipan
Coconut flakes / dessicated coconut (I used 2 sizes)
Apricot jam
Red licorice ('bootlaces')
Red jam / jelly
2 slivered almonds
Half an M&M, chocolate button or other small piece of chocolate
Star Wars Lego figure, ideally one of Luke
Rectangular baking tray (needs to be quite sturdy)
Square cake tin (smaller than the baking tray!)
Red berries, eg raspberries and a sprig of mint to garnish for that touch of class 😉
Instructions
- Make a square white or vanilla cake
- Make some snowdrifts on your baking tray using royal icing, dragging it with a fork to make it look windswept. Bear in mind that some royal icing recipes can take a long time to dry
- Figure out how to cut out a basic tauntaun shape from your square cake (think dinosaur with tail going round a corner. Bear in mind you'll also be cutting to shape the cake horizontally, so you can get some pieces from there. I found it helpful to draw a diagram first (see one of my efforts below, complete with splodges of something:
Cake cutting diagram - ok this could be clearer!
- Cut up the cake, with the deepest area from the middle going where the stomach should be, and position the pieces to make a tauntaun shape on the baking tray
- Roll out the marzipan, using icing sugar for flouring
- Tuck one edge of the marzipan under the cake, and use some red jam to stick the cake pieces together and coat the cake (we want it to look bloody don't we 🙂 ), then cover the cake with marzipan to make a skin, leaving the stomach area uncovered. Save a small piece of marzipan to make the horns.
- Add fur to the skin by spreading apricot jam on the marzipan and then covering it with coconut flakes. I used bigger coconut flakes around the legs and feet, to make them look stragglier.
Tauntaun Cake: Decorating the Head
- Scoop out the middle of the stomach area and fill with red licorice bootlaces. Save one bootlace to make a harness for the tauntaun.
- Use half an M&M or chocolate button to make an eye for the tauntaun, a curved round sausage of marzipan to make a horn, and two slivered almonds to make the ears.
- Warm up some red jam / jelly and pour it into the stomach cavity.
- Position the Star Wars Lego figure next to the stomach area.
- Garnish with berries and mint leaves for that touch of tastefulness and class 😉
The piece de resistance: Garnish the Tauntaun cake with fresh raspberries - so cool and classy...
Comments?
Are you celebrating Star Wars on May the Fourth? Click to post your comments here, or post a link and I'll add it to my Pinterest boards.
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Wow, amazing concept and amazing cake. Wish i could just bite on it.
Thanks!
Oh I remember that scene in Star Wars, and I loved the first 3 movies that came out (unlike the prequels). This ia very original Star Wars cake because I think most people would have made a Darth Vader one!
Yes – the first three movies were in a whole different league – fingers crossed for the new one 🙂 I think there’s a Darth Vader cake tin, so that’s probably why people make more of those.
This is so gross! But, my boy sure would think if was the coolest birthday cake ever!
I know! It went down well at the cub scouts cake auction 🙂
This looks so fun! My husband would love something like this!
It was a lot of fun to make 🙂
Hahaha. This is fabulous! I need to do something like this for my husband tonight!!! <3 May the Fourth be with you. 😉
Thanks, and May the Fourth be with you too!
um – hilarious! I love the creativity!
Thanks! We had a lot of fun making it 🙂
Perfect post for Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!
Thank you and a Happy Star Wars Day to you 🙂
wow, amazing!! May the fourth be with you!! 😉
Thanks – and May the Fourth be with you too!
That ‘s a bit disturbing but hilarious! I have a child who would love this.
Yes – my kids love gross things like that too!
That is so creative. My husband is a big fan of Star Wars. He’d be delighted to have a cake like that. 🙂
Thanks – mine too 🙂
My husband would totally appreciate this. He is the Star Wars fan at our house, but my oldest daughter seems to have the force with her as well.
The Empire had better not mess with your family then 😉
My husband would go mad for that cake!
That is so funny and gross! Love it!
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So this is hilarious and very creative… we are Star Wars fans at our house but this is pretty cool!
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to make 🙂
My whole family loves Star Wars. Cool idea!
Ours too 🙂 Thanks!
This is great! Our family loves Star Wars!
Thanks, same here – we love Star Wars too 🙂
Woah that is SO cool! You are very talented!
Thanks! (I wish 🙂 ) – I’d love to learn cake decorating properly some day though!
My boys will love this cake. I might have to try it for by 5-year-old’ss birthday on June 1st.
Hope he has a great birthday!
My kids are just getting into Star Wars and I wish I could make this and have a movie viewing weekend with them. This looks awesome 🙂
We love family movie nights 🙂
I’m a day late and a dollar short but, May the 4th be with you! Awesome idea 🙂
Thanks, you too!
I have farm boys here so they are into John Deere instead of Star Wars, but it is a cool cake!
A tractor cake sounds like it could be fun too 🙂
You had me at marzipan 🙂 Seriously, that cake is awesome. And so is that sleeping bag! I know many people (my boyfriend included) who would go ape for either of these things 🙂
Thanks! I love marzipan too 🙂 And coconut!
Now that’s some passion! Love it. Very cool.
Thanks!
Your cake is very creative and fun! I know someone that would love your Star Wars cake!
Thanks, I hope so!
So creative and very impressive!
Thanks! It was fun 🙂
Wow! This is amazing! So creative!
Thanks! It was fun 🙂
I love this! Amazing job with all the little details!
Thank you so much! We had a lot of fun making it
love, Love, LOVE this! Thank you for letting me feature it in my May 4th piece.
I admit to having a macabre sense of humor, but I laughed really hard at this. Gooey berry guts and licorice was brilliant!
Thanks so much for sharing it! 🙂
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