Peanuts Star Wars Cake

 I knew that I wanted to make a special, different type of cake for my cousins Mason & Shawn. I started brainstorming, and thought that it would be fun to use Earl Grey as a unique flavor, particularly since Mason & Shawn are both avid tea lovers. My friend Becca shared an awesome blog with me, and I actually found the recipe that I ended up using on it (http://www.dessertsforbreakfast.com/2012/05/announcing-sated-magazine-and-earl-grey.html). It's actually a chocolate cake with chocolate Earl Grey ganache.! Yum. :) I doubled the cake recipe to make a 9 x 13 cake and 3 cupcakes (which make up the cup of tea). I also doubled the ganache recipe, but used 9 teabags rather than 12, and ended up with a lot left over...which wasn't a problem...because it's delicious.!

 Mason & Shawn both enjoy reading, so that's when I thought to combine the concept of a book cake with a cup of tea- naturally Earl Grey tea. Mason is super into anything and everything Star Wars & Peanuts...hence the combination. I actually found a similar fan art picture of Charlie Brown and Sally through Google (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110311232523/scratchpad/images/1/1b/Peanuts_meets_Star_Wars.jpg) which I slightly modified and then recreated out of color flow icing, along with a Han Solo Woodstock, a Snoopy Chewbacca, and a Storm Trooper Woodstock.! :D

 Decorations made out of color flow icing are incredibly fragile however, and although I had never before had a problem working with them, tragedy struck this time- probably since I had a large audience watching me assemble the cake. Charlie Brown Skywalker's body crashed to the floor O_o so I ended up re-piping his body with white icing and black gel, and I think it ended up looking fine. To create the cup of tea, I stacked the three cupcakes on top of each other (with ganache in between the layers and small wooden dowels in the middle to hold them together), and covered the cup of cupcakes with thinly rolled out white gumpaste. I then attached the gumpaste handle with toothpicks. I added a thin layer of white icing on top, and then drizzled on caramel sauce to give a milky tea appearance. I artfully, purposefully chose to drip the "tea" everywhere- it seemed more visually interesting to do so. The "tea bag" is also made out of gumpaste, as are the "pages" on the sides of the book. I popped everything else on, piped everything, and added silver star sprinkles.! It was a hit.! :D