Castle Bowser Cake

For his birthday, my nephew asked for Castle Bowser from Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Most of the detail is modeling chocolate, with isomalt accents.

Inside, it’s chocolate cake with bright green mint icing.

Terastal Form Terapagos

This year for Christmas, my nephew asked for a stuffie terastal form Teragos, because he has been playing the Indigo Disk DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

I’m quite pleased with how this one turned out, especially all the appliqués on the shell.

Trobbio

This is my nephew dressed as Trobbio from Hollow Knight: Silksong. Hollow Knight: Silksong is notably not yet released, so this is a character he knows about only from the trailers. He also dressed as a character from Hollow Knight: Silksong in 2021, so you can tell how long he has been anxiously awaiting the release of this game!

Koraidon Cake

Koraidon is a Pokémon from the new Pokémon Scarlet game. My nephew wanted him in his battle form for his birthday cake.

The cake is chocolate with chocolate ganache. The tire in his chest is chocolate cast in a donut mold, covered with gum paste. The feathers and horns are wafer paper. The eyes are isomalt with wafer paper pupils.

As usual, I made about four times as much cake as the occasion required, so we only got through the head at the party.

Sword of Khaine

For Christmas this year, my niece requested the Sword of Khaine from Total Warhammer. It’s made of poplar with Apoxy Sculpt details and EL wire embedded in resin.

Fidough

Fidough is a new Pokémon in Pokémon Scarlett and Violet. My nephew asked for a stuffie Fidough for Christmas.

It’s a pretty complicated shape. I think it turned out pretty well, but its head is so much bigger than the body that it keels over forward whenever you put it down.

Empress of Light

My niece went as the Empress of Light from Terraria for Halloween this year. We had to simplify the costume a bit because I didn’t have as much time to work on it as I would have liked, so it’s all store-bought clothes except for the crown and the wings. The wings are an aluminum frame lined with color-changing LEDs with nylons stretched over them.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

My nephew is eagerly awaiting the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, so he wanted to be this character that he saw in the trailer, even though we don’t know their name or anything about them.

Ada-1

For Halloween this year, my niece wanted to be Ada-1 from Destiny 2. It’s a pretty complicated costume and I don’t think I fully did it justice, but she seemed happy and looked pretty cool.

Hollow Knight Cake

In keeping with our Hollow Knight Halloween costumes, Sam wanted a Hollow Knight cake for his birthday this year.

For reference, this is the image, from Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition, on which the cake is based

The back is fondant over foam core, painted with food coloring. The rocks on the base are fondant as well, which is good because Sam loves eating fondant and enjoyed eating the rocks as much he enjoyed the actual cake. The cape is wafer paper, coated with gelatin, and the sword is gum paste.

The body, the horns, and the soul totems in the background are made of rice cereal treats covered in fondant.

The soul totems were not in the image the cake is based on, but Sam seemed to think they were important. The one on the left is full of soul energy, hence the little white bits.

The one on the right has been corrupted, hence the Void tendrils. All the Void tendrils are made of gelatin.

The Knight’s head and the thing he’s standing on are made of cake, which is much more cake than we needed for the five people living in this house.

We did Zoom the grandparents in to the party, but unfortunately, they couldn’t help us eat the cake.

Paracesis

This is the Paracesis from Warframe, requested by my niece in the specific colors that she uses on it in the game.

It’s made of poplar, reinforced with brass rods, with Apoxie Sculpt detailing and a plastic gem embedded in the blade.

Pure Nail

This Christmas, my nephew wanted the Pure Nail from Hollow Knight, to go with the Sharpened Nail that he already had as part of his Halloween costume. It’s made of oak and Apoxie Sculpt.

Hollow Knight Halloween

For Halloween, my nephew wanted to be the Knight from the video game Hollow Knight. Then it turned into a family affair, with my niece as the Pure Vessel, my sister as the White Lady, and my brother-in-law as the Pale King.

Valkyr Pusheen Cake

Another cake celebrating my wonderful niece! It’s Pusheen dressed as Valkyr, one of Alex’s favorite frames from Warframe. For reference, this is what Alex’s Valkyr looks like.

Pusheen is a very simple shape, but Valkyr’s outfit is quite complicated. To figure out what gum paste pieces I needed to make, I began by making a full-scale model of the cake out of newspaper and masking tape.

Using that as a guide, I made paper patterns for all the pieces of her outfit and from those paper pieces I made templates and forms to cut and shape the gum paste. The amazing thing is that I actually managed to carve the cake enough like my model that all thirteen pieces of the crown fit together on the cake more or less the way that they were supposed to.

Inisde, Val-kitty-sheen is a beautiful lemon-flavored rainbow.

Spike Roller Cake

This very pink monster is a mini-boss from Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. It's chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache icing. The spike roller itself is a tube of dark chocolate with white chocolate chip spikes and milk chocolate mousse inside.

Ghostie

Another giant stuffie for my nephew! This year, he wanted the ghost from the video game Forager. It's very soft and squishy and perhaps a little larger than I expected it to be.

Fabstaff

Yet another video game inspired wooden weapon! This is my IRL interpretation of the Fabstaff from the Calamity Mod of Terreria. The staff is poplar and the crystal at the top is lexan colored with Sharpie.

Yiga Blademaster Halloween costume

This Halloween, I made my nephew a Yiga Blademaster costume from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s made from two body suits sewn together, with accents of faux leather, craft foam, and feathers. The windcleaver sword is made of poplar.

Dawnbreaker

For Christmas, my niece requested Dawnbreaker, which is a sword from Skyrim. For reference, here is what it looks like in the game.

It’s made primarily of poplar, with sculpted details using a 2-part epoxy clay and leather grip. The magical glowing crystal in the middle is made of a clear plastic ring box, sprayed on the inside with a frost spray paint with a ball of LED fairy lights inside. The orcs in our neighborhood don’t stand a chance.

Guardian Skywatcher Cake

For his 9th birthday, my nephew asked for Guardian Skywatcher from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If you aren’t familiar with it, it look something like this:

This was one of those cakes of which I just underestimated the difficulty. In retrospect, the difficulties should have been obvious. The shape of the Guardian Skywatcher is very undercut. It has pieces suspended off the sides by thin supports. The propellers are wide at the tips but narrow in the center. And the entire thing is flying. None of these things are easy to achieve in cake.

Yet I blundered into the project with big ambitions but minimal preparation. Long story short, it was almost, but not quite, a total disaster. Attaching the pieces on the sides was a nightmare. The propellers all broke before the party. Even the pink piping gel I used for the glowing sections faded before the party started. On the bright side, at least the entire structure didn’t collapse, which was a real possibility. Overall, clearly not my strongest work, but my nephew, who is among the sweetest people in the world, loved it anyway.