Baking the cake adds personal touch


Story by Stephanie Wilken Photos by Craig Fry


it or you can make it. If you want that personal touch, making it is the way to go, and one local baker has just the recipe for a child’s cake - with a dash of fun. Melba Wagner of Yuma has been baking all her life and graduated from the


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French Culinary Institute in 2005. Recently, she enlisted the help of her two grandsons - Connor, 11, and


Aaron, 8 - to help make a cake. Raising Yuma tagged along, and the result is both a fun activity and a homemade cake for a party. To start, Wagner and her grandsons looked at a cake recipe book. She said


she prefers that to looking online because of the feel and the pictures. If you don’t have any cake recipe books, Wagner said she recommends going to a local bookstore. Connor and Aaron had a plan: dragon, and Wagner said that concept is both simple and a challenging activity for children. “The basic shape of the cake is really simple,” she said. “The cake is actually just a bowl.” With the basic shape in place, the boys used their imagination to help


create dragon “parts” such as teeth, scales and more. Wagner said they used rice paper too. “That’s what gave it dimension and character,” she said. And with minimal supervision, the boys were free to decorate - and you can basically do that with any basic shape. “It doesn’t look exactly like the picture because they did use their imagination,” she said. And, Wagner said, the boys felt accomplished after they were done. “It was a lot of fun; they loved it.”


Dragon Cake, by Melba Wagner This cake can be made in one day but we made it a two-day project. The first


day we made the cake and all the parts to the dragon. The second day we finished frosting the cake and putting the dragon together.


1 baked bowl cake (see below) 1 recipe of Buttercream (see below) 1 pound 2 ounces of green-colored rolled fondant 6-8 thin chocolate squares


1 sheet of rice paper (or white card-stock) Artist paint brush


Small metal spatula or butter knife Black edible food pen


Cake board large enough for cake and ‘ash’ base 1 ½ cups grey-colored coconut (add a small amount of black food coloring to coconut and mix with fingers until coconut is to desired color) Please note that the dragon pieces and finished cake in the picture were made


totally by Connor and Aaron with very little assistance from the Grammy. Use theirs as an example but be creative and use your own vision for your dragon. Also, if your fondant is too soft and will not keep its shape, cover in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until firm enough to handle.


1. Place the crumb-coated cake on the cake board. Frost the cake with a good layer of buttercream (leaving a small amount to finish cake board and for ‘gluing’


12 Raising Yuma


(Top right) Melba Wagner shows her grandsons Aaron (left) and Connor (center) which side of the fondant decoration to frost so it will stick to the cake properly.


(Middle right) Connor Reed carefully places pieces of chocolate spines on this cake that is made to look like a dragon.


(Bottom right) Brothers Connor (center) and Aaron Reed (right), with help from their Grandmother Melba Wagner, decorate a cake made to look like a dragon.


on dragon pieces). Using a small metal spatula or butter knife, press the tip into the frosting and then lift up to create scales. Start at bottom of cake and work up. 2. Use a 4 oz piece of fondant for dragon’s rear leg and a 3 oz piece for front


leg. Roll each piece into a ball and then flatten into a ½ inch thick disk. Slightly flatten the edge of each disk. Using the end of a piping tip or very small lid, hold at an angle and press into disk to create scales. a. Place the legs on one side of the cake 3. Use a 5 oz piece of fondant for his tail. Pinch off a small piece for his pointed (triangle) tail. Roll the large piece into a 12-inch length; flatten slightly and then add the scales with the piping tip. Make a triangle with the smaller piece. a. Starting at the ‘front’ leg, lay the tail around the cake; add the pointed tail


‘gluing’ it with a dab of buttercream (note: the tail will not reach completely around the cake) 4. Use the remaining fondant to make the head, ears and eyebrows. Pinch off a


small piece for the smaller parts. Roll the larger piece into a ball and then with the side of your palm, starting in the middle of the ball, press and roll to extend into the mouth/nose. Make a cut for his mouth and offset it a little to create a place for his teeth. Poke two small holes in his nose using the bottom of the artist’s paint brush (or other small tipped kitchen tool). a. Place the head so the nose-end is very close or slightly overlaps the front leg b. Divide the smaller piece into two smaller pieces, making one larger than the


other and divide each of those in two; these pieces will be used for the ears and eyebrows. c. Make the ears with the larger pieces, creating two triangles. Using the end


of the artist’s brush, roll it into the base to create the ear’s hollow center. Roll the smaller pieces into two eyebrows; bend them slightly, set aside. Use a light dab of water or buttercream to stick the ears on the head. 5. For the dragon’s spine, cut the thin chocolate squares into triangles a. Starting at the tail end, dab a small amount of buttercream on the base of


each triangle that will lay on the tail and then angle them up the cake to the back of the head, creating his spine. 6. If you cannot find rice paper, use clean card stock to make eyes, teeth, wings and smoke. We used food coloring makers to color our rice paper but you can leave it white.


hen it comes to birthday cakes, there are two routes: you can buy


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