Cartoon Cakes & Spicy Layers

Cartoon cakes...I had never stepped into this world, until yesterday.  Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club is tackling this technique this month, so I thought I'd give it a try.  This tutorial is taught by guest instructor Sara Golding of Sunny Girl Sundries and Sunny Girl Business Solutions.

With fall just about here, I thought I would lean into the pumpkin spice theme for this challenge.  Customers love the pumpkin spice scent this time of year, and I created my own this time using an essential oil blend of Cinnamon, Cardamon, Ginger, Clove & Nutmeg.  

Here are pictures of the Cartoon Cake Soaps made for the tutorial, and the inspiration to get us started.

More inspiration can be found from cake making tutorials, and I found these that gave me ideas.  Yes, these are actually 3 dimensional cakes, decorated to look 2 dimensional.  Pretty fun!

So, I decided to make a pumpkin spice cake, with fond memories of the spice cake my grandmother always made :)  I wanted to add the side frosting to the design, so I placed a divider in the mold leaving about 1/4" space to pour the "icing" along the side while pouring the layers. 

My cake is a four layer spice cake - brown "cake" and white "frosting".  All layers also had cinnamon added for a speckled, spice cake look.  I also sculpted the top layer, for a bit of the dripping frosting look.  I didn't go too deep though, as the layers were starting to firm up already - thank you clove! 

Once the layers were poured, I piped a bit of "cream" on one side and added a piped pumpkin as well.  Some pumpkins are better than others, but the addition does give the feel of fall.  I did not get around to taking photos of the process, but here is the soap poured and piped.

I unmolded the soap loaf and cut one bar at a time to keep them from drying out in between piping each one in the comic style.  I followed the idea in one of the cake tutorials, where you pipe around the entire shape of the soap, and you see that outline when looking at it straight on.  Afterwards, I noticed that the soap examples had minimal black piping, and maybe these would be better that way?  Or maybe better with a white piping instead, since the cake itself is fairly dark?  I did play with the line thickness, and I'm not really sure which I like best.  

This was a fun diversion, and just what I needed this week!  Thank you Amy!