Volcano!

For a while now my hubby and I have been talking about making a "volcano cake". A friend of ours made the suggestion when we were discussing what we wanted for our wedding cake, and while it was obviously* not an option for the wedding, we decided to give it a try anyway.

We thought we'd make it for J's 30th birthday party, but we sort of lost track of time and didn't get around to practising it beforehand. So we only made the first prototype this week (his birthday was on Wednesday) and we never got around to organising an actual party.

We started with a rather elaborate plan, involving a lot of cake-carving and icing glue. Here it is, stuck up on our fridge. Note the lightbulb and cable; also the bride and groom caketopper.

Then I found a better idea on the internet, and bought a large ring cake mould. I borrowed my mom's smaller ring cake mould and then I was ready to go!

I filled the big mould a bit too much and we ended up with overspill of cake lava (which was quickly eaten - the dogs got some too!).

Fudge (our aptly-named dog) waited very optimistically during the proceedings.

Yay! Our little cake mountain!

I made the icing and then J put it all together. First he joined the two layers with apricot jam as we weren't sure there was enough icing. Then he covered everything with chocolatey goodness.

We peopled our volcano with jelly babies. Are they innocent villagers fleeing the coming destruction or malicious worshippers of the volcano's power? How can we tell them apart?

A sacrifice was made to appease the fire gods. Anthropologists will no doubt be studying this phenomenon for years to come.

A close-up of the perpetrators. It seems the hapless victim managed to cling to dear life with his toes (can you see them?). Let's hope he made it! 

Ultimately, our goal is something like this. One day we'll try again and maybe we'll get a bit further towards actual volcano-ness.

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* Not so obvious to hubby, however.