Giant Hamburger CAKE!

There's something really cool about mega cakes- especially when they take on the looks of real food items or other things. I have loved recreating mega cakes from some of my favorite cake artists and this cake was no exception! I was so excited when it was actually finished and I could not believe how amazing it looked!

You will need:

• 2 vanilla cakes (you can use a homemade recipe or a cake mix from a box, as well as whatever other ingredients are needed with it- such as eggs, oil/butter, milk, etc.)
• 4 (buttercream
• white fondant
• red fondant
• gum paste
• 1 box chocolate rice krispie cereal
• 1 bag mini marshmallows
• 1 (12 oz.) bag dark chocolate chips
• modeling chocolate
• 1 tbsp corn syrup
• gummy bears (separated with only the green and yellow ones)
• powdered sugar
• lemon juice or alcohol to dilute food coloring with
• Many different food gel colors- I used Wilton's food gel set.

To make the bun, start by baking two 9 inch round vanilla cakes. Allow the cakes too cool for a few hours, then begin to carve. Starting at the top, take advantage of the risen peak of the cake and carve around the sides making a "bun" shape. This will be the top bun.

For the second bun, level off the risen peak, then flip the cake upside-down. Carefully carve around the sides of the cake, cutting off all caramelization around the sides and making it slope somewhat outward so that when it's flipped right side up it has a very vague "V" shape as seen in the picture above. Remember, you can always cut off more, but you can never replace what you've cut off! Take it slow and shave off little pieces at a time!

When both buns have been carved, crumb coat the cakes with a thin layer of buttercream, then set aside.

Clean your surface, making sure to get rid of all crumbs or leftover buttercream. Then sift powdered sugar over your surface, covering it completely. Place your fondant in the center and begin to knead, carefully folding in brown gel food coloring as you do so. Be careful not to let the gel food coloring drip out of the fondant because it will stain both your surface as well as your hands.

When the fondant has reached a light tan color, roll it out in a circle about a fourth of an inch thick. Roll it back over the rolling pin to transfer, then place on the top bun. Using your hands and a fondant smoother, carefully get rid of all air bubbles or wrinkles.

When the fondant has been smoothed completely over the cake, use a knife to cut away all excess.

Take the remaining fondant and roll out to a fourth of an inch, then roll back onto the rolling pin. Transfer the fondant onto the bottom bun, which should, at this point, be upside-down. Once the fondant has been smoothed around the cake, trim away the excess fondant, leaving about an inch around the side of the cake.

Now flip the cake right-side-up and fold the remaining inch of fondant over onto the cake. Use buttercream to help it stay in place. Set aside with the top bun.

Now it's time to work on the inside of the cake!

Take both your dark chocolate chips and your mini marshmallows and melt them until smooth. Combine them together, then slowly add the chocolate crispy rice, waiting until each portion is incorporated before added another.

When it becomes too difficult to mix with a spoon, turn the chocolate rice krispies out onto an oiled surface and knead. Separate the chocolate rice krispies into two piles of equal size and form each pile into a patty slightly bigger than the bun.

Place the patties on a plastic wrap covered cutting board and set aside.

To make the onion slices, roll out a small piece of fondant about the size of your hand. At this point, I made the call to transfer the fondant piece to a plate to avoid dying my countertop purple from the food gel, which, I think, was a good move!

Then begin to paint the top surface of fondant with diluted food coloring (you can use either lemon juice or alcohol, as both will evaporate soon after). Cover the entire top surface with the purple coloring, then let it rest for about an hour.

When that hour has passed, begin slicing the fondant in long strips as seen in the picture above. As you cut strips, you will be attaching them to one another. Use a tiny paintbrush to dab a little water onto the tops (the purple part) of each strip before pushing them together. This will help them to stay together.

When you have made a set of the strips, gently fold them in on theirselves to make a sort of "C" shape. The sides of the inside strip should be touching, giving the set a 'purple onion slice' appearance.

Cover the blade of your knife with powdered sugar or corn starch, and then slice the bottom end of the set to get rid of any uneven edges. Repeat with all the sets until you have a few purple onion slices!

Roll out a ball of red fondant about a fourth of an inch thick. Since red is such a difficult color to achieve whether in buttercream or fondant, I opted out of making my own and used a pre-dyed fondant, which didn't taste as good, but gave the color I wanted.

Cut out tomato slices using either a biscuit cutter or a mason jar. Next, use a fondant tool to mark the red fondant disk, giving it little indents where tomato seeds would go.

As this tomato wasn't going to be extremely visible on the outside of the cake, I didn't feel the need to spend a ton of time trying to make it look realistic. So after getting rid of the excess powdered sugar, I set these aside.

Cover your surface with finely sifted powdered sugar, then place a ball of gum paste in the center. Using the Wilton 'leaf green' food gel, dye the gum paste a light green to match the color of lettuce. Then roll it paper thin. Use a ball fondant tool to give the edges a sort of 'ruffle' before placing them wadded up pieces of paper towel to dry.

Begin dying your white modeling chocolate with Wilton's 'golden yellow' and 'lemon yellow' food gels until it turns the bright orange/yellow that is signature to American cheese. Continue to knead until the food gel has been completely incorporated. A way to check that is too slice the ball down the center and if there are still visible streaks, then you will need to keep kneading. If not, then you can roll the modeling chocolate out!

Use a pizza cutter or a knife to slice a large square from the modeling chocolate, slightly bigger than the hamburger patties. Take the excess modeling chocolate and roll it out once more, slicing a second square from it. Set aside both of the cheese slices.

Separate out the yellow and green gummy bears, then carefully cut them into tiny chunks. Place each piece in the bowl, then add the corn syrup. Mix until each gummy bear piece has been covered, then stir in a drop of Wilton's 'kelly green'. This will be the relish on the burger.

To make the ketchup, take a portion of buttercream and add red food coloring. For the mustard, use Wilton's 'golden yellow' and 'orange'. Continue to experiment with colors until you are satisfied with the color of the buttercream.

Create a mixture of Wilton's gel food coloring using both 'brown' and 'copper', along with a diluter of either lemon juice or alcohol. Then use a food grade fan shaped brush to paint around the outside of the bottom bun, covering all the visible fondant. Set aside.

Take your leftover white fondant and pinch off tiny pieces, rolling them between your fingers to get a tiny 'sesame seed'. Continue until you have about fifty. It'll take a while ;)

Then take the top bun and paint around it, keeping the brush strokes always going the same direction. When the entire top bun has been covered, place each tiny fondant 'sesame seed' in a particular placement to give it a sprinkled look. You want it too look really random, like a real burger bun.

Now for the funnest part! The assembly!

Place the bottom bun on either a cake board or whatever other surface you wish to serve your giant burger on. I chose to use a wooden cutting board because I thought it gave it a cool, rustic sort of look.

Use an offset spatula to spread a layer of mustard colored buttercream around the rim of the bottom bun, then press the first hamburger patty on top. Flip the modeling chocolate 'cheese' onto the burger. I found that my modeling chocolate square was a little too big for the burger, so I then used scissors to cut away the excess. The goal is that the chocolate rice krispie 'burger' is visible and that the modeling chocolate 'cheese' hangs off the side at the corners of the square, like a real cheeseburger.

Place the second hamburger patty overtop the cheese, and then the second cheese over that, trimming around the sides as previously done. Place three spoonfuls of the gummy bear 'relish' on two sides of the rim of the cheese. Remember, though a real burger would have the condiments smoothed evenly throughout the burger, this is for the looks! And it looks better when it's more visible!

Using an offset spatula, spread the red buttercream on the remaining sides of the cheese as seen in the picture above. Next, press on the tomato and onion slices, then gently lay on the lettuce leaves.

Now take your top bun and carefully flip it upside down. Spread a messy layer of the 'ketchup' and 'mustard' buttercream around the rim of the top bun, before carefully setting it on the burger. This is the most difficult part and definitely the scariest! It's almost impossible not to leave a mark on the top bun after moving it so much (for me there was a bit of a handprint from where I had held it). I then went back with my brush and leftover mixed food gel and touched it up.

Give the cake whatever finishing touches you think might be necessary, then you're done!

Serve and enjoy!

*I found that the 'hamburger patty' chocolate rice krispies were somewhat difficult to cut into, due to the fact that I had refrigerated the cake (and the chocolate rice krispies themselves before the cake was assembled). The bottom bun then began to crumble because of the pressure pushed upon it when trying to cut the above layers. To solve that problem, don't refrigerate the chocolate rice krispies at all.

Also, make sure to check out my instagram account where I have a quick video of how I made this cake, as well as many other really cool ones!

Enjoy!