Skateboard with Moving Wheels

by Gail Taylor
(Halifax, Nova Scotia)

I started this cake with two 9"x13' chocolate slabs. I layered them with butter cream frosting, and then glued them together, end to end. So the two slabs made one long narrow cake. I then started to carve out the cake. I like to have the cake frozen or very cold to do this. The skate board is upside down, as the graphics on a board are actually on the bottom, so to show the graphics, I had to do the board upside down. The ends of a board curve up, so on the upside down board they have to curve down, also it is important to carve out cake underneath the board so that you can see the edges of the board. This gives it the free standing look. Once that was done, it was time to cover it in fondant. The Tony Hawk (famous skateboarder) logo was created out of fondant. I cut it out free hand, but you could also create a paper template to do this. The bird skull graphic I painted free hand, using black coloring paste and a pit of clear alcohol. You may be able to create a template for this, I preferred to do it free hand as I am an amateur pencil sketcher anyway.
Once all this was complete, I used modeling chocolate to create the trucks (the axel) and the wheels. I created a rim on the wheels that fit onto the trucks so that the wheels were able to spin freely. I have a video to show them spinning on YouTube.
When the trucks and wheels were all put together, I then painted the trucks with silver pearl dust to give it a metallic look.
... and voila! A skateboard cake! This was a really fun cake to make :)