Have you heard of Slinky Malinki?

Have you heard of the book series Slinky Malinki? I hadn't. When I first got the call about doing a Slinky Malinki cake I thought the graphics would be cartoony and I could copy them like a Winnie The Pooh or Diary of a Whimpy Kid. So while we were talking I looked it up on the computer and found this picture. Sure I could copy the cat in fondant..........probably close......with effort..........but the rest of the graphics I would be lost on - well not lost, but it would be a challenge the first time out and a lot of small pieces - but still not impossible. And I agreed.

Then I thought about it for a week. I looked up Painting on Fondant - thinking maybe painting this would be easier then creating each small piece and putting it in place. Sure.......PAINTING it would be a great idea. Quicker. Cool looking.

So I baked the cake - cooled the cake - iced the cake - covered the top of the cake in white fondant and then covered the sides in a lavender grey color to try to match the cloud coloring of the book cover. Then I looked at the cake and thought...........whose idea was painting this??

Oh, that is right it was MY idea to paint this. Quicker. Cool looking. Only now that I was doing it I had to add Intimidating......Impossible......Incredibly Silly........Needs to be done in 2 hours.

My husband is a sweet man. He saw the dilemma. Me standing in the kitchen next to the cake with my icing tints out - my paint mixing palette tray out (I made that name up - what are those paint palette things called anyway? I just bought it, but didn't look at the name) - paint brushes sitting - kids jumping and yelling about - not a serene setting for painting on fondant - well painting on anything really. I asked him if he could do something with the boys so I could do the painting. He not only did something - he loaded them up and took them away to do some grocery shopping!

For awhile I just stood there enjoying the quiet. Then I realized I was just pretending to enjoy the quiet because I was too afraid to actually put any paint on the fondant - once I did that I was committed and any other medium to finish this was gone. So I dipped my brush in the brown tint/water mixture and started on the clouds - sure that was easy - clouds.....so then I did some fencing.......

By the time the boys got home I was amazed with myself. The clouds, the fence, the plants, Slinki himself (or is Slinki a girl?), I was working on the glove and getting ready to do the wording. 1 hour had passed. AND they brought me a latte!!

I was very excited about how this turned out!! I knew I could paint - shoot Way Back Before Kids I used to paint things. Every once in awhile now I get to paint walls - and not just flat wall paint, but murally stuff - still it isn't painting a cover of a book on fondant - much less scary painting a wall.

The kids and Dave gave me the "Great Job" "That is Amazing" feedback. So I felt good boxing it up. My friend, Catherine, came with me on delivery - she was also a friend of Stacey, the person receiving the cake. Neither of them had seen the cake - so when we got to Stacey's house and opened the box up their "Oh my gosh" response was TOTALLY COOL!! Stacey ran to get the actual book to show Catherine just how close I had gotten.........That is the kinda excitement that makes me want to do another cake!! Thank You Ladies........


This cake was half Chocolate Chocolate Chip and half White. Topped with Vanilla Buttercream icing and then covered in Vanilla Fondant.