Harley Davidson Cake

by Christopher Frew
(Marietta, Ga)

I made this Harley Davidson Cake for my son's birthday. He wanted a motorcycle cake and wanted it to be Harley Davidson. When I thought it over I realized that a gas tank would be a good shape for a cake.

I made four quarter sheet cakes. Two layers were dark chocolate fudge and two were french vanilla dyed orange. That way when you cut into it the colors inside were Harley colors.

I put the four layers together and cooled them in the fridge. This made it easier to shape the cake. I used a large flat cake knife to shape the cake into the gas tank. I used buttercream frosting for the layer between the cake and marzipan outer coating.

I rolled out marzipan and smoothed it over the cake to give the clean outer surface. I used silver pearl dust to make the tank shiny silver in color. You can get pearl dust at baking or craft stores. I added water to it so that I could paint it on with a soft brush and to give it a brighter shine.

I colored some of the marzipan and made stencils of the Harley Davidson logo and flames. Using my stencils and an exacto knife I hand cut the logo, lettering, and flames. Then I assembled the designs onto the cake.

And yes, the entire cake was edible! When we went to the restaurant with it people kept coming over to look at the cake and they all thought it was professionally made for us, so I felt pretty good about that.