Antarctica Cake

Hubby decided that he wanted a pool party for his 25th birthday this year - problem is, his birthday's in January. I decided to make a cake to go along with his wintry theme and decided to do penguins. This was my first time working with fondant (I used it to mold the penguins). It was surprisingly easy! If you can play with Play-Doh you can use fondant.

For the cake, I used the White Cake recipe that I used for Jeff's Rainbow Cake back in October.

For the icing, I used the Cream Cheese Frosting II recipe from allrecipes.com.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING II

INGREDIENTS:
2 (8-oz) pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the powdered sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

The cake is just a one-layer 12" square. I made the penguin's body parts from store-bought fondant tinted with black and orange gel icing color, using a toothpick to hold the pieces together. The ice block that the fishing penguin is sitting on is actually a block of store-bought fondant.

I tinted a small amount of frosting blue and spread on the cake for the pond, pulling my spatula up while I was spreading it to create the "waves".

Our "igloo tower" was created from sugar cubes, glued together by a paste made from powdered sugar and egg whites (instructions found here).

The fishing rod is a toothpick, the fishing line is thread, and the fish is a Swedish Fish candy (I threaded a needle and poked it through the Swedish Fish).

To assemble the cake, I first placed the igloo tower on the cake. Then we piped a shell border around the top and bottom of the cake and around the base of the igloo tower. Then I placed the ice block and penguins. I finished it off by sprinkling white Wilton Cake Sparkles over the top of the cake.

Oh, yeah, and here's the proof...