This week’s cake was a 21st birthday cake for a golf addicted guy. This four layer chocolate cake features red, black and white “plaid” (his school colors), a fairway area, putting green, bunker, hole, golf ball and pin sporting the number 21.

Here’s how I made it!

Of course I started with my favorite chocolate cake batter. This cake was made up of 4 9″ cake layers. I used a chocolate buttercream for the filling, crumb coat and outer layer of frosting under the fondant.

For the chocolate buttercream:

1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter
1 bag (32 oz) of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
3 Tablespoons cocoa powdered

Using an electric or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together butter, vanilla extract and cocoa powder.
Slowly add in powdered sugar.
Add splashes of heavy cream as needed to keep consistency from getting too thick or clumpy.
Once all ingredients are combined, continue to mix for an additional 1-2 minutes to get out any air bubbles that may have formed in the frosting.

Stacking:

This batch of cakes baked pretty level, so I did not trim the tops of each layer this time when typically I would. I used a piping bag to apply a thick layer of buttercream to the top of the cake before spreading the frosting to help get an even layer. Continue this process for each layer.

I always put the top layer upside down. This seems to help keep the top layer level.

Crumb Coat:

When doing a crumb coat, I always start by filling in all the gaps between layers with buttercream using a piping bag.

After filling in all the gaps, a crumb coat will be easier to get smooth on all sides.

Adding the Elements:

Once the crumb coat was done, I used a fondant tool to “draw” the layout of the top in the buttercream to get the spacing of all the elements where I wanted them.

I then used this “drawing” to carve out the bunker. The chunk of cake I carved out for the bunker, I then flipped over to mirror the bunker to create a hill.

Adding the Fondant:

This cake required some fondant layering that I haven’t really had the opportunity to try out before. The sides had a base layer of red, topped with white and black plaid diamonds. Since the top green layer was going to overlay the sides, I had to start with the red instead of how I normally start at the top and work my way down.

I started by measuring the height of the cake and rolling out the red fondant into a thin sheet. I then cut the fondant into two strips each 6 inches tall (just a tiny bit taller than the cake).

I then began wrapping the red fondant around the sides of the cake by placing the fondant on the cake board and folding it up the sides and smoothing up as I worked by way around.

Once fully wrapped and smoothed around the edges, I trimmed the fondant to be level with the top of the cake.

For the top layer I started by covering the entire top in a dark green fondant. I let the fondant “drip” down the sides of the cake.

I made sure to press the fondant down into the bunker.

Next I laid out the putting green. For this I just rolled out a lighter green fondant free handed a flip flop type shape, which just happened to fit perfectly. Don’t ask me how I did it, it just happened!

I then used a small amount of chocolate buttercream to line the bottom of the bunker.

Using finely crushed graham cracker crumbs to imitate sand, I pressed the crumbs into the buttercream in the bunker.

Next I rolled out the black and white fondant for the plaid details. I used a diamond stencil I cut from printer paper to get the diamonds as close to the same size as possible.

I also cut a thick triangle from the white fondant to us as the flag and the number 21 from the black fondant. I used a skewer stick as the pole. The last item to cut was a black circle for the hole, which I used a large piping tip to cut.

Then using fondant “slip” I attached the diamonds to the red fondant in an alternating pattern. Fondant slip is made by microwaving a small ball of fondant in a bowl with a few tablespoons of water until it forms a thick type glue. Using a fondant brush or small paint brush, apply the fondant slip to the fondant before pressing it onto the fondant base layer.

Finally, I added the hole and flag to the putting green!