Fossilosaurus Cake

One of the best traditions we started at the Blue and Gold banquets in Sierra Vista was the cake contest. We must have had 100 cakes last year. Doing it on a ward level here made me a little nervous because I wasn't sure they'd be as into it. Boy, was I wrong!

What cracks me up about this cake is that although it didn't follow the Dinosaur theme, it was what we served for dinner--spaghetti and meatballs! And boy were these meatballs good!

Now for mine..Drumroll please :-)...Ok, we did a dragon cake for the Chinese New Year theme last year and I didn't want to just "dinosaurize" the dragon idea and then Spencer had the idea to make a fossil cake. I found a picture of one on the internet that gave me some good ideas but I wasn't sure how to do the skeleton. They used frosting but you have to be pretty artistic to do that. I bought a box of Good and Plenty's to try and use the white ones for bones but most kids hate licorice. On a whim, I also bought a box of meltable white chocolate. Then on my own, I got the idea to print out a picture of a dinosaur skeleton, place a sheet of wax paper over it, and put the melted white chocolate into a decorator's tube with a very small tip and "color in" the picture. Then I popped it into the freezer and prayed I'd be able to get it off. Are you kidding? It totally came right off although with something this delicate it did take some gentle handling. I frosted the cake making sure to have an edge of frosting all the way around the cake (to hold in the topping), then topped it with crushed oreos and animal crackers mixed together, gently put the skeleton on (he did come apart during the transfer in several places but so do real ones), and strategically placed some rock-like Jelly-Bellies (avoiding the coffee flavored ones-yuck!) and there you go! Easy as could be. I dragged everyone over to the cake table at the banquet and made them look at it, even the poor ladies that were trying to do their scrapbooking class while we were setting up. I've never been one to hide my light under a bushel. :-)
I call it "Fossilosaurus Cake".
Now I just keep thinking, if I can figure out how to color white chocolate without ruining it, and I can get enough awesome coloring pages, I may be set for life! There's a cake auction coming up in our ward for the YW. I may have to do a little experimenting.