A friend of mine (hi, Alyssa!) asked me to make her mother a birthday cake. Her mom was turning fortysomething and LOVES Harley Davidson motorcycles. Awesome! I love a good challenge, but I also knew that attempting to create that logo out of fondant could shave a year or two off my life. I was right. It was the most challenging design I’ve done – but I’m so happy with how it turned out!
It’s also fitting that I was asked to make this cake just weeks before I move to Milwaukee (the home of Harley Davidson). Ride on!
I made a three-layer 10″ cake. The bottom and top layers were white cake dyed orange and the center layer was chocolate. I tried to make a black layer, but it looks more gray than anything else. Sadface.
I frosted the cake with buttercream icing.
I created the Harley logo out of black and orange fondant. I used Fondarific fondant, which I ordered from Amazon.com. I highly recommend it!
I printed out a large high-quality version of the logo and used that as my template. I traced the general shape of the logo, but cut the letters out by hand (tracing just didn’t do the job well enough). Invest in a set of Exacto knives if you’re going to be doing a lot lettering – it makes it easier!
I surrounded the cake with little balls of black and orange fondant to give it a more finished appearance.
Let me know if you have any questions!
How do you get the buttercream so smooth??
Amazing cake!
Thanks, Laura! I frost the cake and allow the frosting to “set”, meaning that if you touch it, your hand will come away frosting-free. Then I use a Viva paper towel (smooth, with no patterns or designs) to smooth the cake. Here’s a video explaining the technique: http://www.monkeysee.com/play/988-cake-decorating-a-secret-to-smoothing-icing
So cool! My husband would love this. Thanks for the tips!
OK, I just watched that video and that is about the handiest tip ever for this perfectionist! I spent an hour on my last cake trying to get it smooth just using my off set spatula. I about lost my mind. Thank you, thank you!!
I know what you mean — getting the icing to be smooth can be maddening! Hope the tip helps :)
Great job on this! Looks awesome.
Thank you! :)
That looks really good! I’ve never worked with fondant, but i’ve always wanted to… :)
My dad’s gonna love it!
I love your cakes, even though it’s sometimes challenging cause i live in France and most of the time i can’t find the ingredients you talk about…
Thanks for the comment, Alice! Feel free to e-mail me if you ever have questions about supplies or what I’m talking about :)
I will, thanks for offering ! :)
That cake looked amazing , I wanna make the same cake to my husband , can I make the logo in advanced or it has to be on day before, because I have some thing to do, let me know, thank you
I’m not sure if you could make the logo ahead of time. The danger is that the fondant will dry out. Maybe you could do a test run — roll out a thin sheet of fondant about the size of the logo and see what happens if it sits out over night or for a few days. Maybe it’ll dry out, maybe it won’t. Sorry I can’t be of more help!
i want one can u make me one