BB8 Star Wars Cake

As chief baker of the family I like to make sure I bake something a little different for every birthday occasion. Last year I baked Dan 3 birthday cakes (one bundt cake that fell apart coming out the tin, one heart shaped rosette cake that the dog stole and the cake that survived - G&T cupcakes!) and this year I decided to bake a clue to his birthday present (Star Wars live!). 

With some sly investigative work I uncovered that BB8 was his favourite character so set about finding the best way to make the famous droid. I found most tutorials and how-to's of a 3D spherical BB8 a little bit intimidating (after last years birthday disaster I really did have visions of BB8 rolling off the kitchen side and into the path of a hungry doggy)so decided to go it alone with my own ideas and only using simple fondant tools such as circle and square cutters!

How to: Simple BB8 Cake

1. Remove cakes from oven and leave to cool before removing from the tin (Again, I really recommend a cake release spray!).
2. Use a cake leveller or serrated knife to layer your larger cake and cut your smaller cake in half.
3. Use buttercream to fill your cake layers and then do a crumb coating, place cakes in the fridge to chill. 
4. Remove from fridge after 20 minutes, I recommend a second buttercream coating, especially if your initial crumb coat was a little thin. 
5. Knead your fondant icing until it is warm and pliable (use a little Trex if it is crumbly or icing sugar if it becomes very sticky). 
6. We will cover the cakes individually, starting with the larger cake (6" diameter). Roll your fondant (I love using my fondant rolling mat, it makes this so much easier!) in a circle shape so that it has a diameter of 10". Roll this over your rolling pin and lift so it is covering the centre of your cake. Gently ease your rolling pin away. 
7. Smooth your fondant over your cake, lifting and smoothing each fondant crease. Be careful not to cause any tears or rips. Gently rub over your cake using a flexible smoother to remove any creases, small imperfections and air bubbles (I like this
   flexi-smoothie here). Trim the edges using a pizza cutter or small knife. 
8. Repeat for your smaller cake. 
9. Stick your fondant covered cakes to your prepared cake board using either royal icing or melted chocolate. 
Now it's time for the fun part. After much google research I realised that BB8 is a free spirited kind of droid and that there isn't a specific way to do his "markings". Instead, I googled lots of BB8 photos and interpreted his design in the easiest way I could.  The majority of my design was created free hand using a small craft knife however I did use a variety of circle and square cutters.



1. Start by putting an orange rim around the edge of your cakes, I think this border distinguishes the cake from your cake board (and also covers many imperfections)
2. Cut out 3 orange fondant circles using a large circle cutter (have two slightly smaller circle cutters to hand). 
3. Using your medium circle cutter, make an indent in the centre of your large circle. Then use your smallest cutter to remove the centre of the indented circle. 
4. Use your small craft knife to cut four blunted triangle shapes (I strongly hope at this stage that a photo speaks 1000 words!) so that you're left with a cross shape cut out from your large circle. 
   
5. Use your grey fondant to cut out some shapes to fill your cross space. I started by cutting out a circle using my smallest cutter and cut this down to different shapes. 
   
6. Use your cutters with either grey or orange fondant to cut square shapes to be used on BB8's head, as well as some thickly cut circles to be used as his optical lens.  
7. I then used my craft knife to make some soft indentations on BB8's body to make him look less "smooth" and a little more "mechanical". 
   
   
   
I used black, grey and orange lustre dusts with a clean small make-up sponge to dust down the indentations to give him a slightly dirty appearance and make him look more like the droid he is! 




I hope this post gives you a rough guide on how I created my little BB8 guy. When I made the cake I had no intention of writing a how-to but took the photos to be used as a guide for myself if I ever had to make a droid in the future!