At a Christmas party for my husband's work I had the opportunity to speak with one of his co-workers about a cake he had asked me about. His wife is a huge fan of the anime by Hayao Miyazaki "My Neighbor Totoro." Of course, being a fan of Studio Ghibli myself I jumped at the chance to make this cake. He had a picture he found on line of a cake he liked and I found a few more...only because I was uncomfortable with the original design. He picked his favorite and I used that as my "cake-spiration" as I've taken to calling it. It is copied off of another designers cake, but it has different elements as well. Colors are varied...the cover leaves are different. It is a Cassie's Creation although not original.
This is a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. (Three layers because I can never get a red velvet to rise correctly.) The blue background, trees, soot sprites and hearts are completely fondant. The leaves, Totoro, and bunny creature are fondant and gum paste mixed. I made the creatures this way because you can seal them anyway you want and they will last for a long time. The leaves were made this way for two reasons. 1) I thought I wanted them to be stiff. I figured it would be easier applying them to the cake (WRONG!!) 2) I used white fondant and gum paste to stretch my green farther. Next time I shall just be using white fondant. I also chose to put the hearts back on the cake when I had origninally decided not to. My main reasoning was this cake was for a wife and he loves her...as well as she loves Totoro. I decided to go with a lighter color because I thought the original red stood out too much and the pink kinda blended well.
I had a lot of fun preparing this cake and can't wait to try my hand at another Studio Ghibli cake in future...until then...
From my Family to Yours; Enjoy the Treats!!!
If your wondering about the cake-spiration original you can find it here.
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