The Very Hungry Caterpillar experience

My just-turned-7 little boy loves the childrens story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'  (Eric Carles' wonderful 'full of holes' rite of passage).  Whilst trawling around online, I found a cupcake train version of it online and decided to give it a go. 

An effort in and of itself. OMFG is how I'll sum up the experience.  I'll save the witty rhetoric (for now) and just up and show you how it turned out first off.

The white elephant in the room - the head is too big.  Yep, I know.  by the time I'd covered it with buttercream and rolled the fondant, it was well past 1am and I was willing to take a big head over starting again.  That would have killed it.  Its staring at me in these photos, it looks positively comical in its oversized appearance, so before I could go any further, I wanted to get that out.


Onto the making of my Very Hungry (and Dangerously Enlarged Cranium 'ed) Caterpillar.


Step one was to make a whole bunch of cupcakes.  Not knowing how I was going to lay it out from the start, or exactly what I was going to use for a cake board for this monster (looking back, I should be proud, look at the potential for disaster considering how half arsed I was in my whole approach here...lesson learned people, sometimes cutting loads of corners works out ok) I wanted at least 24 or so cupcakes, just in case.


I went with my trusty butter cake mix for the cupcakes and the supposedly 'small' round cake that was to be the head.  This recipe made either 24 smaller cupcakes (not the tiny ones, but not the muffin sized liner ones if that makes sense) or 2 smaller round cakes for this exercise.

Butter Cake

Ingredients

·        2 Eggs

·        125g or 1/2 Cup Butter, softened

·        1 Cup Sugar

·        2 Cups Self Raising Flour

·        2/3 Cup Milk

·        1 teaspoon Vanilla

Just throw it all in, mix together on low then medium speed for around 3-5 minutes until well combined.  Cakes took about 25 minutes on 150c and cupcakes about 12-15 minutes.  I wanted to bake them at a low temperature to stop the cakes rising too much on the head cakes, in my many googling evenings over time learning as much as I could about baking what I wanted to get great at making, I read lots of advice about higher temps giving you better and higher rising cakes.  So, I use that theory loosely and it seems, in my experiments anyway, to be pretty much true.

First disaster.

What happened here, my wonderful darling Dal took the kids for a drive for an hour so I could have the kitchen to myself in peace.  I had a couple of visitors, got distracted and I forgot to check the time regularly, and, overbaked a few cupcakes.  It was really dark outside by now and I tried not to panic, or cry, or call one of the several numbers I have stored in my mobile under '3am' just to swear at someone.  I made up another batch of batter, and just resigned myself to having not enough green liners to do the job.  Improvisation, the stuff of survivors!

I made up enough buttercream to cover about 36 cupcakes (1 & 1/2 times the recipe I have been using so far), then separated half into another bowl and tried to tint them two different shades of green.  I thought I did a good job, they looked dissimilar in the bowls, but, when I combined them to get the light and dark swirl, I realised my eyesight really is that bad without direct light and I'd mixed them pretty much the same.  But, green was enough at this stage.  I'd also just realised while I was entertaining one of my visitors I'd neglected to add vanilla to the buttercream (its ok, I made Dal taste test it, just in case as he has the iron guts of the family) and it was sweet and buttery.  Nevertheless, fail about, well, not going to count what number I'm up to but I'm on a roll, however you look at it.

Because of the sheer quantity of cupcakes, my deadline of less than 24 hours and my limited abilities, I opted for Homer and Starwipe to perform their encore, so I could get through these as quickly as possible and without using brain power.  I was desperately worrying about how much time I had left, what I was going to do next, and, yeah, mid-cake crisis.

Grab some thick chocolate sprinkles next.  They are sometimes in the 'cultural' section of the supermarket if you can't locate anything suitable in the baking goods aisle. I got mine this time from a deli I felt like having a look in to pretend I'm more cultured than I am, they actually have lots of stuff I could play with, and Milka chocolate so I might have a little culture in me somewhere and I might go back because I want to!

They need to be nice and thick like this at the very least.

Poked half a dozen of these into the back of a few of the green cupcakes (fiddly, very fiddly)

for later, to make the sort of 'hairy' back fuzz theme the caterpillar has.


Procrastinating aside, it was time to start on the head cakes.  I made up another batch of plain buttercream (remembered the vanilla though this time) using Unsalted Butter and Icing Mixture.  I thought I had a bag of Pure Icing Sugar set aside for this purpose, but, it was too late for even a dash to Coles (our local shuts at midnight) so I had to press on with what I had.  When its to cover a cake that will have fondant on top, you have to be fussy, shouldn't substitute, but, another rule broken on this cake.  I had to though!

Spread it on generously and apply it as evenly as possible all around the cake.

The next step was to get a cake finishing spatula dealy thing (I'm going to expand my knowledge and tool set in this area as my next priority, or at least before attempting anything similar to this again!), some boiling hot water and give it as smooth a finish as I could possibly get.

I found by holding a tea-towel under one arm, I could wipe my 'spatula-thing' off after each section to remove the excess buttercream, dip it into the boiling hot water for a few seconds to heat, then wipe again to remove the moisture and speed the whole process up.  Handy Hints 101.

Next the fondant.  I want to so say the other 'F' word though after my experience with fondant.  This time, and I say that as a fondant virgin, how laughable,  I used the ready to roll stuff from the supermarket.  My experiences with fondant to date have never involved applying it to cakes.  I have years of turning it into glazes, applying it to the tops of donuts and donut cakes, but, not rolling it, and fiddling to the degree you have to with this stuff.  I'm an utter newbie, none of what I know translates at all.

First mistake I made as a fondant virgin, was not buying it pre-coloured.  Colouring this stuff, really gave this whole experience the OMFG rating.  I'm sure there's many a way I could have done it at home without as much stress, fuss and mess, but, I either read about it and didn't absorb enough detail, or, I skimmed.  

I microwaved the fondant for 15 seconds then began to knead it until it was workable.  Then, out came the Pillarbox Red food colouring.  Pure evil.

I felt like I was adding this stuff forever.  Working it through was awful and I made such a mess.  OMFG.  A few times I wanted to say 'this colour will DO!', then told myself there was no point doing it THAT half-arsed (I mean, it was marble pink and I was throwing in the towel, toughen up sister!) and pressed on several times through this agony.

My advice if you are going to throw caution to the wind and follow my mistakes, add this evil colour as few drops a time as possible.  I understand if you get shitty and slap a whole heap on there in frustration.  I've been there,  I've done that.  Just keep some Icing Sugar to one side for when the going gets real sticky, and we'll keep all talk of crazy people pills to an absolute minimum.  Deal?

When I finally achieved the desired enough colour and packed it in for real, I went and scrubbed my hands and arms and got ready to roll the fondant out.

Not having a fondant mat, I again improvised and rolled out on a sheet of greaseproof paper.  I figured at worst I could flip it and peel it off like a stamp.  Here's to hoping anyway.

Roll it out nice and flat, well, thats what I did, lol.  Lift off (yay, it did pretty much work) and apply to the cake 

Trim the excess and smooth the edges.  Melt a little Copha in the microwave to repair any cracks (smoothing with your fingers dipped in a little of the melted copha)

Internet advice had told me not to do this step whilst the cake was on the cake board.  I'm not sure how right they were about that, but at this stage, I was super worried how I was going to get that cake off my kitchen bench.

The cake board dilemma was solved with a piece of MDF I'd saved for some future craft activities (again, who am I kidding!?! I can't be the only parent who buys things and plans to do something fun with them but they never see the light of day...), covered with Alfoil.  Best I could do, and I was happy.  One major problem was gone.  


But then I went and created another.  I got the cake up off the bench using a knife, and 'knife-spatula-dealy' then promptly placed it on the board without any planning or thought.  It was the wrong spot.

I got the cake up again, got the board completely recovered and this time, I called in help from Dal to plot out how to fit it on.  Tradies are so useful sometimes!  After I'd placed the head in the proper spot on my newly covered board, using a finger, he traced a line for me to follow with the bottom cupcakes.

I then made up in a mug some Icing Mixture and boiling water, until it was a thick paste (I made up waaaay too much, you only need about 2 Tablespoons of this stuff!) to use as a 'glue' for the cupcakes.

Using a teaspoon to apply a small amount to the bottom of the cupcake, I secured each cupcake along the outline.

When I was ready to move to the back row, my previously choc sprinkled cupcakes came out.

 Next, I needed to make some legs and antennae.  I'd had another stuff up that lead to me having no white fondant left (yes, I stupidly went in all guns blazing and made the LOT red :( ) so I added as much black as I could to the piece I saved for the legs and antennae and got a really dark purple in the end that showed up black in most photos.

The legs and antennae were made just by shaping them in my hands.  I tried a couple rolling them, log style, and just basically did a little bit of this and a little bit of that, trying to learn the limits of fondant that has been over coloured and abused.  I secured the antennae with a little craft wire into the cake (didn't do my placement well on those, they are way off centre) and also made a little log for his nose.

At this point, I called it a night.  I was out of fondant, the shops would be open in about 4 hours, and, it was 3am.  

With fresh fondant this morning, I got to learn from my mistakes a little and made some orange outlines and green tabs for the eyes.  As you can see from the picture below, I made sure the worst of my fondant join errors were angled away from where the photos would be taken and where your eye was drawn to.  That was the hope at least!

I rolled little green logs for the eyes, then, rolled out much thinner a long loop, joined it on itself and placed it around each green log once placed.  I shaped it as best I could around the log using fingers, melted Copha for any big issues and crossing my fingers.  In the picture above, you can see the eye on the left is a work in progress, the right side has been done.


This cake was a massive challenge, a bit of a laugh and a surprise.  I've never needed a drink so much as after finishing this cake, but, am yet to enjoy that reward.  The party went off without a hitch, so many lovely comments and the kids ate not only a cupcake, but, wanted some of that oversized head too, which was the biggest compliment of all and the whole reason I love to bake.  Nothing gives me as big a rush as people who are enjoying what I have made.  Novelty cakes add a whole other level to that, which is what will one day soon draw me into doing another, no doubt!