Tiki Cake 4U

by Corina
(Kingsburg, CA)

My friend asked me to make a tiki cake for her niece. I went ahead and researched several tiki cartoon faces, which I used as a guide to make it. It's a 6 in. round cake and its 6 in tall. It's all chocolate with chocolate fudge filling, crumb coated with vanilla BC and then chocolate ganache.

Lastly, I covered with home made chocolate flavor fondant and used fondant/gumpaste colored pieces to make the face. I have to add that I marbled the fondant before applying it and then painted in brown food color to achieve the wood look. I made hibiscus flowers to decorate the cake and finished with matching cupcakes. I hope you like it as much as I did, since it was super fun to create.

This is the Fondant recipe I used. To make it chocolate I added 1/4 cup of chocolate semisweet powder.

Ingredients required to make the tiki cake fondant recipe:

• 1 Tbsp of unflavored gelatin


• 1/4 cup of cold water


• 1 tsp of almond extract


• 1/2 cup of light corn syrup (If a corn syrup is not available, you can substitute it with a sugar syrup made with 1-1/4 cups sugar and 1/3 cup water, boiled together until syrupy)


• 1 Tbsp of glycerin (some recipes say it's optional, believe me, it's a must)


• 2 lbs 10X confectioners sugar


• 1/2 tsp of white vegetable shortening

Directions how to make the tiki cake fondant recipe:

1. Sprinkle the gelatin over cold water in a small bowl and let it rest for 2 minutes to soften


2. Place the bowl in a microwave for 30 seconds on High, until the gelatin dissolves


3. Add the Almond extract


4. Add the corn syrup and the glycerin and stir until the mixture is smooth and clear (if the mixture is not turning smooth and clear, microwave it for an additional 15 to 20
   seconds on high and stir again)


5. Sift 1 1/2 pounds of the sugar into a large bowl


6. Make a hole in the sugar and pour the liquid mixture to it


7. Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes sticky


8. Sift some of the remaining 1/2 pound of sugar onto a smooth work surface and add as much of the remaining sugar as the mixture will take


9. Knead the fondant, adding a little more sugar if necessary, to form a smooth, pliable mass


10. Rub the vegetable shortening on your thumbs and knead it into the fondant


11. Wrap the fondant in plastic wrap and place it in a tightly sealed container to prevent it from drying out

If the icing dries out and harden it can often be revived by popping it into a microwave oven for a few seconds and then kneading it back to life

Hibiscus Flowers

I was looking for a tutorial to make hibiscus flowers. I liked this one because they were super colorful, fun, animated, and perfect for a teenager cake. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did you can find the tutorial here

Wow, thanks Corina.

I have to say I had no idea what tiki cakes were until today. How ever Wikipedia tells me that Tiki refers to large wood and stone carvings of humanoid forms in Central Eastern Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean.

The term is also used in Māori mythology where Tiki is the first man, created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne. He found the first woman, Marikoriko, in a pond. She seduced him and he became the father of Hine-kau-ataata. In the Māori language, the word 'tiki' was the name given to large wooden carvings in roughly human shape.

So I learned some thing new already this week and it's only Monday!

Thanks for sharing your terrific tiki cakes!

Sophie