How to Make a 3D Cake

For my example in this article, I've chosen to use a graphic of a bumble bee. This is a cute cuddly little bee that would make a really darling cake for someone who loves animals or gardening.

The next step once you've found your image or a toy or item that you can use to model your cake after, is to visually dissect the image into basic shapes. If doing this in your head is difficult for you (if you're a visual learner), get a pen out and mark the item into shapes. There's really no right or wrong. Sometimes I carve into one large sheet cake, sometimes I carve by using many smaller cakes and putting them together before carving.

Use cake pan shapes as your guide. I know that I own some round pans and a very large rectangle pan. So I try to look for circles and squares in my designs.

Here on our bee shape you'll see that I've dissected him (visually) into two large circles and five smaller circles.

There are two tiny circles for his antennae and one little piece of triangle for his tail and two strings for his antennae to stay on. I usually use fondant on my cakes, so those un-circled shapes I would probably build out of fondant.

You'll see in this photo I've chosen to make the "wings" section of the bee from one circle. After looking at the design, you can see that the wings circle, the body circle and the head circle are all basically the same size. Not exactly, but remember, this is art, and there are no rules. So to start this bee I would choose to make three cakes in 6", 8", or 9" circles (depending on the size of the party) and one other square cake to make the smaller eyes and antennae bobbles out of.

I usually make extra cake, because cake is awesome. If you make too much, you can always eat it or make cake balls out of it. If you make too little, you'll be sorry you did!

First, bake and cool your cakes. Use a thick pound cake or recipe made for 3d cakes (you'll be glad you did, it should be dense!)

Freezing the cakes after layering them can make them easier to carve, they'll be sturdier. For this design, I would make all three of the large circles two layers, so that I'd have room to carve them into a rounded dome. I usually use a large cake board to put my cakes on as I build them.

Put your cakes next to each other and cut out little notches to nest pieces into each other.

Each time you to to make a cut in your cake, use a small fillet knife and "draw out" a division line. Carving is all about proportions. So in this photo you can see that the wings are divided in three parts, with the center part about twice as big as the side parts.

If you like the proportions you've drawn, begin using your filet knife to cut away pieces of the cake to match the shapes in the photo. Start small--you can always cut away more cake later! Don't rush it.

Keep a bowl handy to catch your trimmings.