Making your cake 3-D with Rice Krispie Treats

I am not a pro in this aspect of decorating by any means, but I can give you some basic fundamentals to get you started.

First, you will need a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats. Or if you are just making a small 3-D figure and you don't want the mess, just use pre-made Rice Krispie Treats purchased from your local store.

You will also need some buttercream icing and colored fondant for whatever image you are trying to create.

I recently made a Tiger 3-D cake. So, I will use this as an illustration to demonstrate the technique.

First, you will want to form your rice krispies into whatever figure you are trying to create.

Second, take your 3-D figure and cover it evenly with buttercream. Sorry, I didn't photograph this step. Covering the 3-D figure with buttercream provides a smooth surface to apply the fondant to and allows the fondant to adhere to the Rice Krispie Treats.

Third, cover the 3-D figure with the fondant base color. I used white fondant, because I was going to hand-paint on the stripes.

Fourth, decorate the fondant. You can attach other pieces of fondant using a little water, fondant glue, or a little buttercream. As I said before, I hand-painted mine with food colors mixed with a little clear vanilla.

All that is left now is to attach the 3-D figure to your cake. Because my figure was so big, I actually put mine on a cake board. I used a cake board because I wanted to put some supports under the 3-D figure. To do this, I took my fondant covered cake and marked where the 3-D figure would go on the cake. I then took regular plastic cake support tubes and inserted them inside the marked area. I marked the point where the tube and the top of the cake met, and I removed the tube from the cake. I cut it off with a sharp serrated-edged knife and re-inserted it into the cake. After I did this I set the 3-D figure onto the supports (attaching the cake and 3-D figure together with a little icing to keep it from sliding off the cake. I then finished off the decorations by adding the white beard as a border between the two.

There are many different ways of attaching 3-D figures. You want to make certain that whatever you use is food-safe. You can use sucker sticks, popsicle sticks, wooden skewers, toothpicks (but make certain they are removed before serving), or by just using icing or fondant glue.

If this technique scares you, you can start out small. Maybe you could make a 3-D Snowman for a wintery cake, or a mushroom for a fairy cake topper. I think you will see it really isn't as difficult as you might think. Just have fun with it!