My first Little Deadpool Cake was a such a hit that I had another request for it shortly after I made the first one. Because I had already done one this second one was a bit better. I learned a bit more and did a few things differently.
I made this cake in May but have been so busy with school that I simply haven’t had a chance to post it. I thought this time I would do a semi-tutorial on what steps I took on making Deadpool. There are people who I’m sure will tell me there are easier or better ways to do some of this stuff and they are probably right. But, this is what I came up with as I was working on the design.
The first thing I did was go online and find and image. This one my son sent me when he requested this cake so I didn’t have to go searching very far. I had to save the image and zoom it out to the right size for a 9×13 inch cake. Then I traced the image with a pencil. Once that was done I took a sharpie and outlined the whole thing again and made several copies of the image. It’s best to have several copies on hand in case you made a mistake, or something I didn’t do on this cake but a later one was I cut out parts of the details to use as a template instead of trying to trace it on to the fondant. I’ll explain a bit more on that later.
Once I was happy with the image I began cutting it out.
The next step was to roll out the fondant to the desired thickness. I usually eyeball this. Probably not the smartest thing to do if you want everything to be the same thickness but I hate fussing with the gadgets that help gauge thickness. You can get little rubber or silicone bands to put on the end of your rolling pin. There are other little tips for rolling it out evenly but I won’t go into it here because I didn’t use any of those methods. Once the fondant is rolled out it’s time to transfer the template to the fondant so it can be cut out.
I like tracing the image on to the fondant first and then use an X-Acto knife to cut out the image. I don’t like trying to cut around the template because the paper shifts or I get little pieces of paper wedged into the fondant.
Once the outline was cut out it was time to transfer the details. I used a cool little tool that was almost like a pencil and traced over the the lines and other details within the image. I really needed to make sure I got the arms, the belt, and the different black details of his costume. You really need to get those detail lines on the fondant, because this way you know where to put the other colored fondant cut outs.
I rolled out a couple of the other colors I needed and then traced those details on to the appropriate fondant color. Another way to do this would be to use one of your extra copies and cut out the larger parts like the eyes, belt, and some of the black costume details. Then cut out those pieces in the fondant. I did the details in little steps. I started with the eyes and finished those first before moving on to the next step. I didn’t want all of the little detail pieces lying around to get lost or have something happen to them.
Once those details were finished it was time to put them on the big piece. I like using a little bit of water on the back of the piece of fondant I’m adding to sort of make a glue. It’s especially helpful if the fondant pieces start getting a bit dried out. Fresh fondant sticks really well to other fresh fondant but it’s not as easy to work with because it tends to become misshapen when trying to transfer it over. If it was too soft to work with I would let it set and dry a bit before I traced details on to the fondant and cut it out.
I simply worked through all of the details a little at a time. This takes a couple of hours to do. It takes time and patience so don’t try rushing it.
Once all of the details were on it was time to outline the piece. In the past I’ve used royal icing and it works well enough. My problem with the icing is that it is so fragile. You have to be extremely careful with your fingers or you smudge it or knock pieces off of it and I think it just ends up looking bad. Now I use fondant rolled into a long thin rope and slowly work my way around the piece. A little water for glue and you end up with a nice finished product.
I left the finished piece to sit and dry a bit overnight before transferring it to the cake. I really just wanted to make sure that nothing fell off.
So those are the steps I used to make Little Deadpool. I use these same steps for any of the flat pieces I make out of fondant. Hopefully you’ll get a few new ideas for your cake decorating endeavors.
Have fun and enjoy!
A Little of This and a Little of That 