Created Creatively: Penrith Panthers strike again!

If you know me, you'll know that I'm not really into sports. If you've seen me, you can probably tell that I'm not at all athletic.

But there are lots of people who are into sports and all things active. Some who may be so 'into' sports that their house is decorated in various sports equipment, hats, scarves and banners, and who's never to be seen on a weekend due to a love of playing and/or watching every single sport ever imagined... All at once.

I'm sure if you change 'sports' to 'baking', then I would fit that exact lifestyle. Speaking of which, a few weeks ago I made a Penrith Panthers themed cake!

I had seen the Panthers a couple of months ago, and really enjoyed watching them... You know, "training"... in the pool... wearing tiny little speedos...

<ahem>

But back to the cake ;)

With previous NRL cakes I've made, I've put an edible team logo on top of the cake, team coloured fondant stripes down the sides of the cake, and the same animal that represents the team out of fondant hovering on wire in the middle of the cake.

And I prove to be a creature of habit this time around... Kinda.

I knew that a panther was going to be tricky, but for my friend, I really wanted to give it a go! So using an outline on baking paper and a needle, I 'perforated' the rolled out black fondant underneath.

You probably can't tell from the pictures, but it was a bit rough.

Then with a bit of fondant (for the tail), and mostly royal icing, I used the same technique (perforating the fondant)to trace where I need to fill in with the icing...

It was OK.

But faces are always the hardest! :'(

After a couple of hours of poking and icing teeny tiny bits of fondant, the Panther ended up being way too heavy to go on the cake (it could have been because I had only used one piece of wire).

So I cut out a printed version, and used that instead. Part of me almost wished I'd chosen that option to begin with, but I did learn from the experience (a.k.a. trauma)... I think.

On the delivery of the cake, I was complimented on my ability to match the coloured stripes to the team colours! FTW!

Here's how it went:

I'd started with all colours on the cake: A white background, with purple, blue, and black stripes. It was fine, and I was happy with it...

But the cake was so tall, I felt that it needed something bigger around the base. Something more than little balls of fondant like I've done with previous sports team cakes.

So I decided to wrap the bottom with a thick black ribbon, and once I'd decided this new plan of action, I removed the black fondant stripes, and replaced them with more purple fondant stripes:

I had hoped that it made the cake look less lanky, and more... sturdy. Like an NRL player.

The final pieces of cake decoration were the stars, and the [paper] Panther :)

Aaaaand because I have this niggly little thing called anxiety, I had a moment* believing that this massive cake in front of me wouldn't be big enough to feed 30 people.

... So I made some football biscuits as well.