The Dragon Cake I made for my 4 year old’s birthday was so popular, that I decided I’d better do a tutorial. Note, I am not a professional baker, and i’m sure there are things I’ve gotten ‘wrong’.. but that’s one reason i did this tutorial to show that you don’t have to be a professional to attempt something cool!

PS: You guys better appreciate this! I actually didn’t do the best job of documenting my process while making the Dragon Cake, so I took some of the leftovers and made a mini version just so I could get some good pics of the process. And since I did put a lot of work into this tutorial, I would be tickled pink if you’d link to it, stumble it, or share it around!

So, you have a couple of ways to see it…

I wrote the whole thing up as an instructable, here. If you’re really going to try it (or want ALL the details) be sure to read the instructable, as it’s much more thorough.

Or if you just want a quick and dirty version I documented the creation of the mini dragon as a photo-tutorial here and below.

Oh, I’ll do an entire Dragon Party Wrap Up(cakes, invites, favors, etc)
this week, so stay tuned.

1. A possible skull material (the original dragon’s skull was modeling chocolate), 2. “Skull” modeled out of Tootie Roll, 3. The guts! (cake ball material-but I do recommend a light color instead of red velvet), 4. kneading, 5. Rolled fondant for head., 6. a platform for holding the cake while draping, 7. molded dragon body, 8. Place cake on an upside down cup, and drape fondant., 9. Tuck the edges under, but leave the neck and tail ends untucked., 10. Layout, and place skull., 11. Cover skull in fondant., 12. Shape tail out of fondant., 13. Roll out a contrasting color, and cut into strips, 14. Cover joints with strips of fondant, 15. Cut out a wing shape., 16. Shape the wing, and Attach to toothpick, 17. jun09 240, 18. Use a large straw (or larger circle) to make dots., 19. To make the eyes, 20. The eyes!, 21. Cover a Ball with fondant, Mold Foot from Fondant., 22. Mold the Claw, 23. Place the Claw, 24. Finished Mini-Dragon

Get the whole thing here:

How to make a Dragon Cake – More DIY How To Projects

Related “Dragon Party” Posts:

• Download dragon thank you note and party invitation
• Finished Dragon Cake…
• Cake Baking Day!
• Dragon Wings…
• Dragon Invitation Graphic
  

Now, it wasn’t a small party (not only his friends from preschool, but our friends with kids were there), so I initially made 20 of these. Hence they are NOT high quality heirloom construction. You could easily modify these instructions (adding hems and what not) to make these more of a “finished” product. But for my purposes, I figured the quick and dirty version would do just fine. I also kept the design pretty cheap – I figure each one was about $1 in materials cost.

These would be great not only for favors, but for the “dress up box”, or if done a little nicer, for a gift too!

I promised a tutorial for both this and the Dragon Cake (done!), so here it is… Instructions are after the mosaic picture, but if you need more info, just email me or post here.

Note, ignore the different colors, i made a variety and used the best shots for the tutorial. I figured a mix of orange, pink, blue, and green would work for a mix of kids, and any kids who didn’t want “wings” could call it a prince or princess cape. Each square of fabric makes 4 capes.

1. Start with a piece of fabric at least 1 yd square. (larger for bigger kids) I did some at 36 in square (about the minimum for 4 year olds) and some a tad larger, which worked better. Measure against the wingspan of your sample child to figure out how much fabric to buy. I found that with 44 in broadcloth, 44 in square (about 1.25 yds) worked really well.
2. Trim fabric to a square. Save the excess. If you want to make the wrist straps more unubtrusive (for a cape look) use strips of the extra fabric for that.
3. Cut on the diagonal, to make 4 equal triangles., Start at each corner, and cut in a big X. that will make 4 capes.
4. 4 triangles, Yep, this will be 4 capes. The longest side of the triangle is the width of your step 2 square.
5. You end up with 4 triangles.,
6. Cut 4 lengths of ribbon about 15 inches each (measure around a child’s neck to be sure of length),
7. Center the ribbon on the long side of the triangle, fold the ribbon over in two, sandwiching the cloth, and pin. Guessimating is fine, i didn’t measure. Then pin about 2 inches from the center pin on either side to help you when you stitch.
8. Cut out Wrist Straps, either out of the same ribbon or from a strip of the excess cloth (i did both)
9. Pin the wrist straps in place, location depends on child size. Use your sample child to get an approximation. I found for the 36 in capes (for a 4 yr old) the straps should be almost at the end, where as the 44 in capes were about 6 inches in from the points.
10. Sew on the ribbon neckpiece, start sewing at the far pin, and sew to the near one. Again, quick and dirty, i wasn’t going for looks here, just attaching.
11. Look at that incredibly straight seam! uh, yeah, moving on…,
12. Sew on Wrist straps, Not rocket science, just a straight or zig zag stitch back and forth so they stay on.
13. Sew velcro on each end of the Ribbon. You could of course skip this and do longer ribbon and just tie it (which I would have done with older kids), but I figured better safe than sorry. This was the biggest pain, but since i wasn’t too worried about looks, not too bad.
14. dragonwings, Here they are in full view! This is one of the larger versions.
15. Back View

That’s all there is to it! Hope you enjoy, and if anyone makes a “nicer” version of these, please share it here!

Related “Dragon Party” Posts:

• Dragon Cake Tutorial!
• Download dragon thank you note and party invitation
  
• Finished Dragon Cake…
• Cake Baking Day!
• Dragon Wings…
• Dragon Invitation Graphic

OR, you can snag both the invite and thank you notes, ready for printing, as a PDF!

nancy dorsner 2009 – some rights reserved (cc licensed personal use only please — if you use him, do leave a comment, and I’d love you to share where you got him!)

Original sketch here.

Related “Dragon Party” Posts:

• Finished Dragon Cake…
• Cake Baking Day!
• Dragon Wings…
• Dragon Invitation Graphic
  

I ‘live blogged’ my baking day today at Twitter, so if you’re interested in some of the interim stuff, and can’t wait for the tutorial, you can see more there: Dot’s Twitter

And I’ll also have the tutorial for the Dragon Wings (quick and dirty capes for party favors) next week, too.

So, I think the tutorial on how to make the Dragon-Wings will have to wait until next week. I made 20(!!) of them, so needless to say, this is a REALLY quick and dirty design. :)

Today I bake cakes. The plan is a Dragon Cake for the party, plus extra chocolate ‘dragon’s egg’ cupcakes (because The Boy wants chocolate).

I’ll be experimenting with marshmallow fondant for covering the dragon, so I’ll let you know how that goes!
I’ll keep you guys updated with pics of the progress… And if you follow me on Twitter, you can see them there!

Enjoy!

PS: All done… I’ll post better pics, but you can see the twitpics I uploaded from the twitter link!

Good Morning… This friday I present to you a slightly cracked dragon. He’s a little silly isn’t he? Almost Suess-ian my husband thought. (PS- See him in CAKE FORM here!)

copyright nancy dorsner, 2009.
Pen, scanned into Illustrator (which I’m trying to learn!)

He’s going to be the graphic for The Boy’s dragon themed birthday invitation.
You’re welcome to snag him and use him (Creative Commons licensed, personal use) for a graphic for your own party invitations!

Remember last year’s Robot Party Invitations? They are CC licensed, so feel free to download and use!

If you missed it, check out the way cool tutorial from So She Sews on how to fuse plastic bags to make cool things!

Oh, and for a limited time, I’m testing out selling some postcard sets. Go here for details..