buttercream millennium falcon cake

The fact that I, Susan Whetzel, am giving a tutorial on a cake blows my mind.

The fact that it is a Millennium Falcon cake is even more mind blowing.  I’ve never even watched Star Wars.

If you are here looking for a true replica, to scale, with working parts and lights and robots, you’ve come to the wrong place.  You should try Ace of Cakes for that, but expect to pay several thousand dollars.  Did you know that to even order a cake, no matter what the size, their fees start at one THOUSAND dollars? Wowza.

This cake, to keep it inexpensive for my client, was made entirely of buttercream.  The only piece of fondant on it is the little gun on top.  It is not to scale. It is not exact. It is based on the Millennium Falcon. And according to my Twitter Friends (thanks, y’all!) it is a success.

To start making this cake, you’ll need to bake a 12 inch round.  This one was chocolate.  Once baked and cooled, remove it from the pan.  Here it gets a little scary – you need to cut it. Just take a serrated knife and trim, following the picture guides.

Now, before securing the extra pieces with icing to hold them on, you will need to divide the MAIN CAKE  in half horizontally.  On your cake board, place a little bit of your buttercream to hold the cake securely. Place one layer of you cake on the cake board. Now fill in with your extra cake pieces to shape the Falcon.  Use the buttercream to get them to stick. Don’t worry about making it perfect, it will be fine once iced. You just want it to have the right shape.  Now, dam the edges of your Main Cake. If not using a filling, you can skip the dam and just do an entire layer of buttercream at this point. I filled mine with a thick layer of chocolate mousse and candy bars, so I needed the protection of the buttercream dam.   

Now, carefully put the top layer of your main cake on.  Phase one complete!

Now you need to ice it.  If you aren’t careful, you’re going to get lots of crumbs in it. So be careful! It is best to pipe on a thick layer of buttercream to the entire cake – more icing than you will need is better. You can always scrape the extra off as you go, but if you start with too little, you’re taking a rick of pulling the cake into it. You don’t want that! So, pipe on the icing, then with a small offset spatula, go to work smoothing the surface down.  Try to make a hump in the center front and also on the side arm, but it isn’t imperative, I don’t think. Make sure to reserve some extra icing for your piping! You’ll need enough to keep white and then some to tint gray & black.  Once it’s iced, chill it for a little bit, it will make it easier on you. While it is chilling, prepare a little bit of black icing, and a little bit of gray. Place each one in a piping bag fitted with a 2 or 3 tip. You’ll also need a bag of the white icing fitted with a 2 or 3 as well. Take the cake out, and get to piping! I won’t step by step you through the piping process, but I will offer you a few notes…

The most prominent features are what makes this looks like a Millennium Falcon.  The 6 circles on the back. The big circle in the center. The radiating lines that come off of the center. I used lots of tiny little lines and dots to fill in the rest, as you can see.  For mine, I used amber colored sprinkles to dirty it up a bit (It’s been flying through space, after all, and I don’t know if the Stormtroopers are all that much into cleanliness.) I also used RedHots and red jimmies for the few red areas on the center portion and where they appear around the back.  I scattered some silver dragees just to add a little more dimension.  The sides of this cake? Just a little bit of line and dot piping. I was not at all accurate, nor did I attempt to be. I think it is the shape and the prominent details that make this recognizable. Be prepared to spend at least a couple of hours just piping details, especially if you haven’t done much decorating. Don’t go overboard, though!  This particular cake isn’t about perfection!

If anyone has any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to email me.  I had so many people holding my hand over the past few months, that it’s time for me to pay it forward!

Have a great weekend everyone!