Little Peanut Cake

by Donna

(Macungie, PA)

I made this Little Peanut cake just for fun…and I had fun.

1. I baked two ball cakes. One was chocolate made from a mix and the other chocolate cherry made with chocolate cake mix where I did not follow the directions on the box, instead I added a can of cherry pie filling and a 1/2 can of water. I just mixed those three things together and baked.

2. I leveled off the four 1/2 balls before putting them together with a buttercream filling. In between the layers I inserted a dowel that went horizontally through both cakes with a space in the middle (dowel exposed was 3 1/2 inches in the middle of the two cakes.)

3. I made rice krispy treats and molded them while still warm around the exposed dowel in a concave shape until it met up with the cake to look like a peanut shape.

4. I covered the whole thing with buttercream and chilled overnight.

5. I smoothed my buttercream a little more, colored the fondant with a tan color (food color gel), rolled out the fondant and smoothed over the cake.

6. I made indentations in the fondant with a pumpkin scooper tool.

7. I rolled out some light biege fondant (just used less tan food color gel) and cut out a circle using the lid of a sprinkles container (approx 3 in.). I smoothed that circle on the peanut so it curved for the face but I did not stick it on. I used a paring knife to cut the tan fondant underneath. I took off the face, peeled off the tan fondant and inserted the face. I wanted the face to look like it was in the peanut shell, not on top.

8. I decorated the face: chocolate chip eyes; for the mouth and eyelashes I used a knife to make the indentations first. Then for the mouth, eyelashes and border circle around face I use a toothpick and dotted on food color gel. Then I smeared it with my finger. For the cheeks, I put a few dots of pink food color gel and just swirled in circles with my finger. I don’t have an airbush, so I improvised.

9. Hair: I cut a piece of fondant and wrapped it around a pencil and left it to dry overnight. Once hardened I painted it with black food color gel, let dry on wax paper and then inserted in cake with a tooth pick. It sagged so I propped it up for about 30 min. then it stayed in place.
10. I made a small fondant bow for the hair and a large one for the body and stuck them on with a small brushing of water. (first I colored the fondant with food color gel, rolled it out, cut the stripped and put it all together).

11. The ribbon that says “Welcome Little Peanut” and the keys are not edible, but everything else is.

Thanks for your consideration. Have a Happy Day.