How to Make an Adorable Chicken Cake-Video

When I made the Easter cake a few weeks ago, all I could think about was those amazing coconut chips. The more I looked at them the more they looked like chicken feathers. And the more I thought about chicken feathers, the more I wanted to make a chicken cake.

Good idea right? Well not if you want to take a bunch of shortcuts and mess everything up as I did! I’ll share all of my mistakes and show you how my chicken cake reminded me of a fish cake. Seriously! I guess I will have to make a fish cake after I recover from this crazy chicken cake that almost killed me!

Supplies for Chicken Cake:
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Recipe:

• Cake-I used a box cake mix and that was my first mistake! Next time I will use my pound cake recipe. Shortcut #1 that didn’t work!
• American Buttercream Frosting-2 batches
• Marshmallow Fondant-I used a Small Marshmallow Fondant Recipe which is 1/4 of a batch.

Fondant Colors:

• Red
• Yellow

Other Supplies:

• Coconut Chips
• Black Jelly Beans
• Cookie Sticks- 2
• 2 Flower Cookie Cutters- 2 1/2″ for the wattle and a 4 1/2″ for the comb

Tools:

• Offset Spatula
• Cake Board the size of your cake
• Sharp Knife for Leveling the Cake
• Ruler
• Bubble Tea Straws or cake dowels and something to trim them with.
• Paintbrush with Water
• Fondant Rolling Pin

Optional:

• Cake Turntable-Optional but very helpful
• Duct Tape to hold the cake board in place while you ice the cake

Helpful Tips:

• Check out How to color fondant and 
  
• How to Level and Torte a Cake

Chicken Cake Video:

Crazy chicken cake!

Chicken Comb:

I don’t know about you, but I remove fondant pieces from a cake before I eat the cake. Since we don’t eat the fondant, I use Tylose Powder in the fondant to help it dry faster and to make the pieces hard. You don’t have to use it, but it does help make the fondant more sturdy and prevent it from wilting if you serve the cake outside. If you don’t use it, allow the fondant time to dry before you try to add it to the cake.

• Roll out a small piece of red fondant.
• Use a 2 1/2″ flower cookie cutter to cut out a small flower shape to use as the wattle.
• Then, use a 4 1/2″ flower cookie cutter to cut out a larger flower shape to use as the comb.
• Cut the larger flower in half.
• Paint water on one side of the comb and add 2 cookie sticks.
• Place the second half on top and gently press into place.
• Let it dry overnight.

Chicken Beak:

• Roll out two triangles with the orange fondant. Use a tool to make the inside curve a little. I used a fondant tool.
• Glue the beak to the wattle with a small amount of water.
• Let the beak dry overnight.

Making the beak was my second mistake because I made it with modeling chocolate. You can make it with modeling chocolate, but not when you sit the cake in the sun so you can get a good picture of it. I was too lazy to color a little piece of fondant orange and skipped that step. Big mistake, but somehow I made it work. I suggest you use fondant.

Now for the Cake:

Look at that cake. Isn’t it pretty? You would think that it would work and like being transformed into a cute little chicken cake, but guess again. It wasn’t strong enough. You better believe when this cake gets remade it will be made with a pound cake. If I do use a box cake mix anytime in the future, I am going to doctor it so it will be more sturdy and will not fall apart on me.

I wish I would have used a different cake recipe:

• Level the cakes.
• Add a layer of buttercream frosting to the top of the bottom cake.
• Make it nice and level.
• Add the second cake and dirty ice it.
• Place it in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
• Remove it from the freezer.
• Support the cake with either cake dowels or bubble tea straws. My hard-fast rule supports any cake that is over 4″ tall to prevent it from falling.
• Trim the supports and push them down into the cake and cover the cake with the frosting.
• Immediately add the coconut chips. Place a few in your hand and press it into the frosting.
• Repeat until the cake is covered.

You may ask the size of this cake, but honestly, you can make this cake any size you want. This one was made with a 7″ Fat Daddio’s Round Cake Pan and is a good size to make things like this chicken and the mummy cake. Don’t buy it if you don’t plan on making cakes, if you need a good size to add to your supplies consider this one. 

Gotta love the coconut!

Do you see the coconut feathers?

• Next, add the fondant comb to the top of the cake.

Let’s put this chicken together!

• Then, add a little frosting to the back of the wattle and add it to the cake.
• Add a little frosting to the back of the jelly beans and attach them to the cake for the eyes.

The wings make him look like a fish! UGH!

So if you add fondant feathers to the side of your chicken cake, be careful because if you make the feather wrong, it will look like a fish. Its beak even looks like it has a bit of a pucker to it.

I do like the way he turned out and can’t wait to make it again.

Now let’s talk about how this cake almost killed me. There were so many things that went wrong I am going to list them. Are you ready?

• I deleted all the photos on the memory card by accident before they were downloaded onto my computer.
• Then, I spent 3 hours trying to recover the images and went through many, many steps trying to recover them to only go through multiple steps to find out at the end that they wanted money or they were going to hold my photos hostage. Well, several photos are being held because I refuse to pay anything more than time! I want a refund for the 3 hours I wasted.
• Don’t use a box cake mix unless you doctor it so it won’t fall apart.
• Did you see the video? Make sure your frosting is warmer than your cake or you will have a big mess as I did.
• Make feathers and not fins.
• I’m sure there’s more but I need to walk away now! I am going to eat that chicken’s face for giving me such a hard time! Mwahahaha, Mwahahaha,Mwahahaha!

No more being lazy and trying to take shortcuts for me in the future. Hard work never hurts anyone so I plan on working hard from here on out! If you decide to make this cake, keep in mind it is a very simple cake to make. I am going to change my name to Stella and hope I find my groove again before I tackle the fish cake.

Bear hugs,