Three-dimensional skull-cake

A reader writes, "For this year's Threadcakes cake contest, baker Chloe Bird rolled her own custom silicone skull mold and used it for a 3-dimensional skull cake."

I got an anatomical model of a human skull and a whole load of food grade silicone. After putty-ing up the fiddly details and finding suitable containers for the skull and jaw I poured the silicone around them and left it for 48 hours to set. After de-molding the originals I trimmed the molds down to make them more flexible. I cast the jaw and face out of milk chocolate and used dental tools to carve some of the detail back in.

Bitter Teeth by Chloe Bird

• [Anonymous]

  I want 100 of these to impress my friends. Do you take orders? Or better, you should sell the molds at Halloween stores with cake mix.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  It’s laughing at the Sugar Information Institute’s propaganda.

• [nerak]

  I bet it’d go great with a big ol’ mug of coffee. MmmmMmm jawbone.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  You know, “sweet things” like this would sell well on November 1 in Mexico, si? On All Saints’ Day, aka the “Day of the Dead”: and not just in Mexico, in fact:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

• [macegr]

  I wonder why milk chocolate instead of white chocolate. You could argue that milk chocolate tastes better, but if the main goal of this cake is taste then there’s no point putting in the effort to make it skull shaped. Maybe the desired effect was a chocolate-covered skull, rather than just a skull?

  • [Anonymous]

    The original Threadless design was of a brown skull. The cake is based on said design.

    Regarding the 3-dimensional comment, well yeah, but the designs could be 2D (painted on) or 3D (as part of the cake’s form).

• [nanuq]

  “You know, “sweet things” like this would sell well on November 1 in Mexico, si? On All Saints’ Day, aka the “Day of the Dead”: and not just in Mexico, in fact”

  Skull-shaped sugar candies are sold all over the place in Mexico during All Saints’ Day. For some reason, I resisted the temptation to buy one when I was there.

• [Anonymous]

  The milk chocolate is perfect. It looks like a fossil cast.

• [Anonymous]

  My girlfriend and I were staying with a family in Mexico during Day of the Dead a few years ago. The mother of the family bought us a pair of 3D sugar skulls, one with my gf’s name iced-on and one with mine. Kinda cool, kinda creepy.

  I guess they would be a lot more creepy if someone else had given them to us. Why thanks Mr Janitor… they’re real nice… *backing away*…. reeeeaaaaal nice… RUN!

• [Brother Provisional]

  For some odd reason, looking and teeth made out of chocolate makes me want to schedule an appointment with my dentist.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Well well.
  It seems that baking may be more fundamental than I had thought in the order of things:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10471599.stm

  Perhaps I ought to do some baking right now.

• [Anonymous]

  It looks like a skull made of crude oil but tastes like chocklit. :)

• [Nword]

  No sir, I don’t like it.

• [dougp]

  Aren’t all cakes 3 dimensional? Cool cake though!

  • [Ugly Canuck]

    Not on the internet, they aren’t.

• [Anonymous]

  this would be the perfect birthday cake for a 40 year old goth.

• [Anonymous]

  The post has really good , informative
  and valid points i like it! thanks
  for sweat sharing!

• [donaleen]

  A cake is to EAT…. this doesn’t sound like you would eat it (edible silicon???). Nor does it look tasty. Some people have too much time on their hands, me thinks.

  • [IWood]

    The silicon was used to make the mold. It’s a chocolate sponge cake cranium with a milk chocolate face and jaw. Read before ya diss.

• [Anonymous]

  As I have just come back from some dental work, that vision of chocolate teeth is really making my teeth ache.

• [Pantograph]

  I’ll be seeing that melting skull in my nightmares for days.
  Do they make three dimensional unicorn chasers? Preferably ones made out of caramel.