I am always up for a baking challenge, so when my nephew Sam casually mentioned last Saturday he wanted an Angry Birds birthday cake for his Rango party this weekend, I kindly obliged. Now I know in the world of fast-moving internet memes, this is not exactly a new concept. However, it’s what the kid wanted and I was not about to disappoint. So a hat tip to electricpig, anyarizm, Artisan Cake Shop, et. al for their amazing work. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

THE CAKE
Inspired by several marathon viewings of Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes, I decided it was time to venture into the precarious world of fondant icing. Enlisting the assistance of my sister’s rockstar South African au pair Avanda, we got to work on baking and making the fondant from scratch. The cake was an easy yellow cake recipe I found online, which turned out to be delicious (note: ours was done in 35 minutes, not 45 as the recipe suggests).

THE FONDANT
I decided to go with marshmallow fondant as it often tastes much better than store-bought and is less expensive when you make it yourself. We used an ask.com recipe, which was fairly simple. The hardest part was rolling it out. We had to throw out a batch as it was too thin and the color was off. In the end we had just enough.*

THE MODELS
I had already started working on the models in advance, but still needed to add details like eyebrows, pupils, and feathers. I used Crayola Model Magic instead of gum paste or fondant because this was my gift to Sam and I wanted him to have something to hold onto as a souvenir. MM comes in four colors - red, yellow, blue, and white. Using the old “yellow and blue make green” theme, I mixed my own colors until I found the perfect pig green and baby bird blue. This process took much longer than I thought, mainly due to my somewhat insane attention to detail (see party hats aka “Santa Hats” as my Sam likes to refer to them as). Also, some of the pigs cracked overnight and I wound up having to redo them.

ASSEMBLY
I tried a bunch of different scenarios, but found the best layout involved a stand off at the mud pit. Using Keebler Fudge Sticks, I assembled a small platform for The General. I could have gone more complicated, but didn’t want to risk anymore casualties.

THE RESULT

In the end, the cake wound up being a big success. Sam was thrilled, especially at the prospect of playing with his new toys. I insisted he keep some on the shelf for looking at later as they are really fragile. Just moving them from the movie theater to the house caused an outbreak of avian leprosy (kept reminding me of this scene). Fortunately, I had some backup clay on hand. I also left some with Avanda for future repairs. 

*To cover an unexpected tear, I brushed melted chocolate chips onto the corner of an upside down pan covered in wax paper, stuck it in the freezer, then transfered it to the cake. The corner fit perfectly and looked great too!