Daniel Tiger Fondant Topper
Any Daniel Tiger fans out there? Today's cake idea is all about the adorable TV character. I've never seen the show, but it seems to be popular. When I was asked to make a cake topper for that theme, I remembered hearing my nephew talk about it. For those of you who don't know, it is sort of a spin-off of Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood, I think it's even his nephew who created the show. Isn't that great that such an inspiring man is still touching the lives of children today? Although, I should probably admit I was one of those kids that did not like his show... I know, I was a weird kid.
Thankfully, though, it sounds like a lot of the great qualities from that show are recreated in this new cartoon. I know my nephew really enjoys Daniel Tiger. So does a 2 year old little girl who's mother asked me to make a topper for her birthday cake. I won't be making the cake, but am contributing some fondant pieces for the out of town party.
Most of my cakes have had a theme that wasn't a certain specific character. I get a little nervous when that's the case. It can be daunting to try and recreate a well known character with fondant... It's all in the details! If the eye is off, or the body shape isn't right, the character can be hard to distinguish. Especially when it's an animal. If you don't stick too closely to the character's traits, it will just look like a tiger. Trust me, the final version was about my third version. Hopefully, though, it looked enough like it to fit in with the Daniel Tiger theme!
To make the piece, I started by printing out a picture to the scale I wanted. I worked with the fondant and the cake pan size she was wanting to use. After going back and forth between adding more orange then more brown, then a tad yellow, I finally got the color I was looking for. After that it was just a lot of rolling out fondant and tracing the shapes. I knew I wanted to include his iconic red sweater and red shoes. It was a bit of trial and error, but by using a printed template, I was able to cut the eyes, nose, sweater, watch, shoes, and stripes all to scale. Here was the final version, along with her name. I am going to finish the cake pieces up with some small fondant balls to be used for the border.
