Eagle Cake with Meringue Pops

I’ve seen so many adorable animal cakes from unicorns, to foxes, to dragons, and beyond!  Today I’m sharing my first attempt at an animal cake… the Eagle Cake. My chocolate eagle cake is frosted with chocolate and vanilla buttercream and topped with meringue pops for a fun, festive, and patriotic look.  Find out how I came up with the look and how to make your own this Fourth of July.

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Developing the Eagle Cake

 

For April, the Sweet Arts Guild was given the project of creating an animal cake.  I’ve been wanting to give this cake a go, but I had already planned on doing an Air Force themed cake for the challenge and I wasn’t sure how to make this work.  My husband and I landed on an eagle cake, even though I had no examples to work with.  

But why was I feeling the need to go all Air Force?  You probably already know that we’re an Air Force family, but my brother-in-law finally decided to take the plunge and join!  We’re so happy and proud of him. I wanted to bake him a cake before he ships off to celebrate this accomplishment.

 

 

My husband usually doesn’t have an opinion on anything I bake, but he was full of ideas this time.  I even tried to switch to a dog cake and make it look like his brother’s pup, but my husband was so excited about an eagle cake that I had to stick with it.  In addition to this cake project, the Sweet Arts Guild put out an additional baking project of meringue cookies. I immediately decided to jump on the lollipop cake trend and top the eagle with blue letters spelling out U S A F.

 

Eagle Cake Plans

 

I’ve never worked with fondant, but it’s a priority on my cake “to-do” list.  For this eagle cake, I decided to create the eyes and beak out of fondant. In order to sculpt the beak, I used part of a rice krispy treat and molded it into the correct shape.  Fondant would be too heavy to use on its own. I got this idea from Cupcake Jemma. Once I had the shape, I gently draped it in yellow fondant and smoothed it down.  

For the eyes, I used my circle fondant cutters (biscuit or cookie cutters would work too) to create that almond shape.  Then I cut out medium sized white circles with the wide end of a piping tip and smaller black circle with the smaller end of the same tip.  All you need is a little bit of water to stick it all together. My husband had wanted me to go for angrier looking eyes and I should have tried to go for a more “Spiderman” eye shape to get that look.

 

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To get the eagle look, I decided to make a giant batch of vanilla frosting and flavor some with melted chocolate.  I filled the cake layers with some of that chocolate frosting.  Then I piped two rings of chocolate around the bottom of the cake to be the neck of the eagle.  The rest of the cake was the head, so I frosted that with vanilla.

Unfortunately, I got too focused on achieving crisp edges that I forgot about my fancy piping plans!  I was going to pipe “feathers” all over the white portion of the cake to add texture and liven it up a bit.  That would have looked fantastic, but I was too focused on finishing the cake that I forgot to think things through.  Next time!

 

 

Chocolate Cake

 

This cake was for my brother-in-law, but that didn’t stop my husband from being the one to choose almost all of the flavors in this bad boy.  In fact, he actually requested something chocolate! Josh doesn’t make a ton of requests for baked goods, so I am more than happy to oblige whenever that happens.  Plus, chocolate.  I don’t need an excuse to bake something chocolate.

With so much going on with the eagle cake, I had to keep it simple and use my trusty chocolate cake recipe, with a small change.  I love this dark chocolate cake recipe, but I felt like keeping things lighter by sticking with regular cocoa powder instead.  Good thing too! Turns out I was out of dark cocoa powder anyways.  I then baked it in my favorite five layer 6 inch cake pan set from Wilton.  The batter was enough to make all five layers and seven cupcakes.

 

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Chocolate and Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

 

There are so many fantastic basic frosting recipes out there that I had trouble knowing which one to choose.  In the end, I made a double batch of the vanilla frosting from Sally’s Baking Addiction, with some modifications.  I chose this recipe because I could easily divide the frosting into vanilla and a chocolate frosting.  Originally I was going to make two different frostings with different techniques, but that makes life waaayy too difficult for me.

I beat the butter, added the sugar in batches, and mixed in just one tablespoon of clear vanilla extract.  Once this basic buttercream was together, I took about a bit more than a third of it and placed it in another bowl.  Then I added some melted and cooled German chocolate, though you can go darker, and beat that until light and fluffy.  I added some white food color, a splash of more clear vanilla, and some heavy cream to the batch in my stand mixer and beat to combine.

 

 

Meringue Pops

 

Check out my meringue cookie post to read all about making delicious and easy meringue cookies and pops.  To achieve the U S A F pop look, I printed off a template (word doc in a big, bold font) and placed it under the parchment paper.  Then I just traced the letters so that they would be uniform in size. Be sure to slip that paper out before you bake.

 

The recipe makes a good bit of meringue, so you can make cookies, pops, or anything else you’re feeling.  I wanted mine to turn out blue, so I added some blue gel color and some black food coloring. Clearly that blue gel was just too strong.  But they would be perfect for a baby shower!

 

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Assembling the Eagle

 

Okay, we’ve got a cake filled, stacked, and frosted with a band of chocolate frosting on the bottom and vanilla all over the top portion of the cake.  How do we go from that to an eagle cake? Choose the front of your cake and place the eyes first. Use a clean brush to apply some water to the back of the eyes and then gently adhere them to the cake.  It’s that easy. I suggest making the eyes before you assemble the cake so that they have some time to firm up a bit.

To attach the beak, stick a toothpick in the base of the rice krispy creation.  I made the beak two days in advance so it would be nice and firm. To help attach the beak, I also smeared on a bit of frosting.  Stick it into the cake at a slight upward angle so that it doesn’t fall right out. If you have leftover frosting, pipe some beads around the top of the eagle’s head to make it interesting.  Place your meringue pops into the top of the cake.

 

 

Working with Fondant

 

This was my first time working with fondant, so let me dish about it.  First of all, I got this cool kit for decorating cakes with fondant and I bought a dusting pouch.  The fondant roller has guides that will help you roll the fondant to an even thickness and I used the trimmer to help cut the fondant.  Since fondant is sticky, you need to use the dusting pouch to very lightly powder the work surface. I used a 50/50 combo of cornstarch and powdered sugar.

Fondant is a lot like playdough so it’s really important to keep your work surface clean.  I saw a tip to roll a small piece of fondant over your mat before you begin to pick up any small bits of fuzz and lint.  Do it! I didn’t do this when I made the beak and I could definitely tell that I was picking up junk. But I did use the trick when I made the eyes.  Big difference.

 

 

I had no idea what I was doing with the fondant, but it was still a lot of fun!  There are so many ways to decorate with fondant, so I think I’ll have to try some out next time I make a cake.  Eventually I’ll even cover a cake with fondant. Baby steps! Are there any fondant decorations that you think are super cute?  Leave me a comment below!

 

Enjoy!

 

Make this patriotic eagle cake as a fun dessert for your Fourth of July party!  It’s a great way for beginner cake decorators to try their hand at playing around with fondant.  With the classic flavors of chocolate and vanilla, this cake is sure to please everyone.

 

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