Star Trek Shirt Cake for My Hubby's Birthday!

Birthday cake for my favorite Star Trek fan!

My husband is a big Star Trek fan.  He has videotaped or put on DVD every show of all 5 Star Trek (non animated) series.  Hubby has most of the movies (except  the one with Khan, and the newer one--he doesn't like those).  He's not the kind that dresses up for conventions, though--well, he might, now that he got his engineer Star Trek shirt at the Las Vegas Star Trek Experience.  Yes, we went there.

Lots of memorabilia.  I drew the line at his bringing his Captain Kirk life size cutout home when he left his last job.   We are selling the house, and I didn't think it would look good for the buyers (sweet hubby had a difference of opinion!)  He loved that thing so much he drove it from California to Tennessee so it wouldn't be crushed by the movers some years ago.

dark chocolate yumminess inside!!!

So when his birthday came up, it seemed obvious to me that a Star Trek cake would be a great idea.  I scoured the internet, and finally found some cakes that might work.  However, I'm a beginner and so I wanted something fairly simple.  

A cake buddy suggested the type of cake I made. She found it on Cake Central.  It looked more like a shirt than the square cakes.  However, there weren't any details about covering the cake with fondant. 

The cake did have some challenges for this beginner--matching up 2 colors of fondant and using Luster Dust for the first time.

The cake tech details:

The cake was a double layer devils food cake in a heart shape.  My hubby adores chocolate, and I felt it would be better to have chocolate under dark fondant. It's also a chance to use my heart pan--it looks like the shirt has shoulders.. Unfortunately, I only had the one pan and had to bake twice.  I've seen tutorials showing that you can make a heart shape using a square and a round cake, but I might be making 4 cakes that way.

The frosting was dark chocolate buttercream, using Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa. Awesome flavor!  The cakes were leveled, and filled between the layers.

  

After the cake was iced and chilled overnight it was time to apply the fondant. I used Wilton black and red fondant for the shirt.  

Matching up the edge wasn't easy, and I was nervous about doing it.  However,  I figured out a way.  I put a line where I wanted the red and black to meet with my bench knife.  After measuring the sides and the width of the cake, I rolled out the fondant to the correct size on my flexible Wilton Roll-N-Cut mat. It needed to be 12 1/2". I didn't want to use a razor, which might tear the mat, so a ruler was used to cut the top edges.  Then, it was a matter of turning the mat upside down and matching the fondant up to the scored line on the cake.  Whew, the colors met!

For me, that was the hardest part.  To make the com badge, I took 2 copies of my hubby's com badge (yes, it came with his Star Trek Engineer shirt).   There are plenty of images on the internet, though.   The oval was cut out from one copy, and the arch was cut out on the other one.  Using grey Wilton gel color, some fondant was tinted to an almost a silver color.  The oval was cut out with grey fondant  Using CK Luster Dust, the grey color became a shiny silver.

Using Americolor gold gel color, I made some gold colored fondant.  The arch was cut from that.  I used the end of a #12 icing tip to cut the pips/lapel button of rank. CK Luster Dust in gold was brushed on these. After that, I used gum glue mixture to put them into place.  The Luster Dust didn't keep the arch from being attached to the oval properly.  It all came together beautifully.

The collar had to be made before the pips could be attached

To make the stand up collar, I cut a piece of black fondant that was about 5" long and 1" wide.  My fondant was just opened and fresh, so it was very pliable.  I folded it in half.      

Then it was just a matter of centering the collar in the bottom of the "v" on top.  Happily, it didn't crack.  If your fondant isn't fresh, you might try using some shortening or glucose to soften it up.  I used gum glue mixture to put them into place also.

I thought about adding "Live Long and Prosper" on the cake board, but hubby was excited about actually eating the cake!  And, at some point, cake should get eaten!!!  So I put the cake on a cake board, and took this picture of the cake with my happy hubby:

One happy birthday guy!

 and we ate the yummy cake.....

Hubby gave the cake a "12" rating on a scale of 1-10!!!

If you have a Star Trek fan in your life, this is a really great cake.  I hope the details of my "voyage" in making the cake will make it simpler for you.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you will make a comment, or Pin my post on Pinterest to help other Star Trek fans.