Vampire the Masquerade RP Cake

For my son's 13th birthday he requested a Vampire the Masquerade cake because he was story teller for a weekly troupe. To trusty Google I go and find....nothing. Vampire Diaries? Check. Twilight? Check. Funny Halloween Vampires? Check. Vampire the Masquerade? Nada. Nil. Zilch. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Here I present to you my improved role playing cake.

The ankh is the main symbol for the role playing game and the individual clan symbols decorate the black tier. There are thirteen clan symbols, but I needed sleep and decided to use the five clan symbols that make up the rp troupe.

There is nothing fancy about the chocolate cake beneath the fondant, the cake will be consumed by pre & teen age boys so Betty Crocker won the day. Standard buttercream icing sticks the layers together and provided the crumb coat. The fondant was also from a box, one: cause the kids do not have refined palates and, two: the thought of trying to colour fondant black and red made me cry. I have yet to produce a pure colour with food colouring when it comes to black or red.

So far, so good.

Cutting out the symbols proved to be more difficult than anticipated. I cut out the clan symbols on paper and placed it over the fondant, then I used a sharp paring knife to cut the symbol from the fondant.  Then I used a filet knife. Then I cried. Rallied. kept cutting. The fondant is so malleable that it would spread under the weight of my fingers and I was constantly re-trimming the edge of the symbols. I kept the symbols off to the side in case I rage-quit the cake decorating - it wouldn't do to have two symbols on the cake and the rest balled up and in the trash. The symbols began to dry out and made it easier to add fine detail that was not previously possible.

I lightly brushed the cake with water where I wanted the symbols to stick, then gently pressed the symbols to the cake and everything held. Now my cake was shiny in places. I tried painting the rest of the cake with water and it was super shiny.

The bottom black band on the cake is a simple border to hide the seam. It was also painted with water but it is dry in the above image to show the contrast between the fondant before and after having a little water painted on. I think in cake shops they use a steamer to adhere decals and finish the cake, but my humble home has no such contraption. 

Now to hide the seam between the red and the black layer. I whipped up a ganache and tossed it in a squeeze bottle. In the end I did two layers of ganache to get a true colour for the "blood." I cheated on the roses, they were pre-made at the Bulk Barn. $0.35 each, hard to go wrong with that. The red and purple candles were added for o-la-la factor, they are from ThinkGeek.com and they red candles produce a red flame and the purple produce a purple flame.

The cake was a hit!

Good luck with your cake decorating endevours.

Special thanks to Cookies and Cups for the step by step instructions on the "blood"