Annie's Edibles: Dragon Slayer

I really wanted to make something special for my fiance, Brandon, on his birthday. He also loves WOW, although not as much as Bryan does. But I'd already done a WOW cake for Bryan, so I wanted to do something different. He's really into other fantasy/sci-fi stuff, like dragons and swords, so I decided to do a dragon cake.

This was only my second attempt at using fondant, so I was a little nervous! The first attempt wasn't so bad... It was back in May, for Mother's Day... I just experimented on a little 9" round cake. It was plain white, with a bow on top. For my first time, I'd say it was pretty decent. Certainly nothing to brag about. So I decided there was too much detail I wanted to do for a dragon to simply use regular icing. It can be tricky to work with and mold just the way you want it, and if it's too warm, it just starts to sag and run. That's certainly not what I wanted. I'm a huge fan of how wonderful fondant looks, but I certainly don't enjoy eating it. It's like... sweet play doh. I tend to keep extra icing on hand so cake-eaters can reapply some icing after they've peeled their slice of cake.

As for his dragon cake, I sketched out a diagram of how I wanted to cut and shape the dragon.

Basic dragon shape:

After I had the shape, I just covered it with frosting, then fondant, cut off excess, and decorated! I gave the dragon some treasure to protect: gold-wrapped chocolate coins, and a treasure chest.

View from the top of the dragon, with his coins: