Gobble Gobble! (2011)

Grab your knife and fork, this turkey needs carved!

This was my first Tur-cake. I'd perused the web for Thanksgiving desserts and stumbled across what seemed to be a growing craze of cakes shaped liked baked turkeys. What a fabulous idea! I loved it! Now to transform my discovery into an actual cake...

With like most other creative ideas, there's a plethoria of ways to accomplish the same feat. Some people suggested using round cake pans for the body, others used footballs, square pans, rectangle pans, or a combination of different ones to achieve that turkeyish shape. After studying multiple cakes (some good, others not so good), I finally decided on a rectangular pan.

Since getting that turkey shape would require some carving--and I have very limited experience with carving--I figured a rectangular shape would be the best start. Being that it was Thanksgiving, I figured I needed to pick a cake flavor that went with the holiday. What I decided on was a pumpkin spice cake. Yummy!

The body is 3 layers high (with buttercream in the middle). I leveled two layers so they'd stack together well, but left the top layer rounded, to give it more of a realistic shape. After that, I wrapped each layer in plastic wrap and froze them overnight. When I was ready to carve, I took them out of the freezer and stacked them, using buttercream between the layers. I used a paper template that I'd drawn to give me an idea of what to carve off the sides, the rest I just winged. Ha! *Slapping my knee* Winged! Get it?

Ahem, once I'd finished carving the body into a presentable turkey shape, I stuck it back in the freezer while I worked on the wings and legs. I used rice crispie treats for those. They worked pretty good, but I did have to stick the mix in the freezer for a few minutes to get the shapes to stay together. I'm thinking I used too much butter in the mix. Anyway, a little freezer time fixed it right up. I shaped the legs and wings, then stuck them in the freezer while I covered the body with buttercream and fondant. I did find that having the cake a little frozen helped with this.

For the stuffing, I used a poundcake that I cut into little squares, using as many edge pieces as I could to get that toasted look. The veggies and lettuce are made out of fondant. To get that toasty brown color, I mixed brown icing color with a little vodka and painted it on.

Everyone loved it. My sister thought it was a real turkey until she poked it and figured out it was a cake. It's going to be hard to top this next year.