Hunger Games Cake

Paul's sister recently had her 13th birthday. When we asked her what kind of cake she wanted she didn't hesitate to say "Hunger Games!" So here it is, our The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins) cake.

Kathy has read the series of books, but Paul hasn't, so we are reading them together. Time has only allowed for getting partially through the first book at this point, however. Kathy came up with the design of the cake and we worked together to pull off the different representations from the book. We've come a long way since the days of elementary school book review dioramas, imagine turning this in for a grade!  

Kathy made the cake from a recipe in a cake book, the title of the recipe is Devilishly Moist Chocolate Cake. It was fantastic cake. It tasted like a brownie but was of soft cake consistency. In between the layers is a chocolate mousse which really made the cake what it was in regards to flavor. We used our old-standby frosting to "dirty ice" the cake before applying the camouflage fondant covering. The adornments are fondant, colored frosting, and chocolate rocks.

If you don't understand what the various features represent, read the book! This was a fun cake to make. It took about 6 hours all together to build it. The best part was Shannon's reaction. When she told us she wanted a Hunger Games cake she was expecting a cake with the mocking-jay pin (the book's cover logo, depicted in the first picture) across the top of it. She didn't expect us to create elements of the story. It was fun to show her the cake. We ended up with way too much cake, but it had to be so big to get the different elements included. At least it tasted as good as it looked so it was great to have lots left over.

Happy Birthday Shannon!