Tank Cake

I made my third cake this week. This is by far the most complicated one so far. It was also my first paying customer. (Thanks, Grace!) I made it for the son of a friend from church. He's turning six and wanted a chocolate tank cake. Being the son of a Marine, I figured he needed a USMC tank. So the first thing I did was Google image search the M1 Abrams tank. I have a window full of tabs of tanks and tank cakes alike. Most of my inspiration came from this picture of a model.

I would have used a picture of an actual Abrams, but it was hard to see any detail in those pictures. The cake I made was Devils Food in three layers but with four pieces. First I used an 8.5 x 11 glass pan. I made two cakes in this pan. Then I got a glass 7 x 5 pan and cooked some more Devils Food cake in it. After they cooled I put the small one in the fridge (my fridge runs very cold). I then took it out and cut the front of it to resemble the top rotating part of the tank. The two large layers were stacked one right side up and another upside down on top with homemade green-tinted buttercream frosting (Note: olive drab is a very unappetizing color). I trimmed the sides to make the angles on the front and back a little more extreme. One of the pieces was "pasted" to the back of the top cake with more buttercream. I then coated the whole cake with buttercream so the fondant would stick to it.

I put the cake pieces in the fridge while I made the fondant. For this cake I had to dye the fondant. Again, I had to make it olive drab, a color I couldn't find here on the island. Instead, I melted some Ghiradelli chocolate baking bars I got at the commissary and kneaded it into the white fondant. Then I added some Wilton Juniper Green tint and kneaded again. I definitely got my workout for the day. Kneading fondant is hard work! I rolled some out and put it around the tank body.

After I fitted the fondant to the bottom piece I rolled out some more and put it around the top pieces. The fondant on the main part was cut at the bottom because I knew I would be moving the cake around. I had that cake set on a cake board that I trimmed to size. The small turret piece was not on a cake board so I cut the fondant a little to large and then folded it under. I wasn't worried to much about seams because the cake is a tank, which is made out of panels of metal. After wrapping and placing the top layer I got out my new gum paste tool set (Love new toys!!) and started designing the details. I rolled little pieces of fondant to make the wheels, the side panels above the wheels, the hatch, the tail lights, etc. I used the gum paste tools to draw in seams for other panels, between the plates on the track, the air exhaust vents on the back, etc.

The cannon was made by wrapping a pirouline in some more fondant. I covered the end that would show and shoved a lolipop stick into the other side to help anchor it into the cake. Next time I will find a better way to support it. I ended up sagging a little by the time the cake was served.

I brought the cake to the party early for final assembly. I put the tank on a large rectangular cake board and then melted some bakers chocolate and smeared it all over the bottom of the tank so it would look like it had driven through mud. Then I put a thin layer of frosting on the cake board and crumbled some of the extra cake over it to make dirt. Here's the final product. I think he liked it.