Graduating Tooth Cake 2011

My little sister just graduated from UNM .  Yep, that's right!  She is a Rock Star in my book!!  :)  She is going to be a dental hygienist, did you guess?  We (my husband, my sister Nicole, and I) flew out to see her graduate, and of course she needed a cake!  She didn't want a square cake with a tooth picture on it, she wanted the real deal, 3D cake.  Just for her, I made one.  :)  

She was wearing this cute t-shirt from school, with a tooth on it.  I said "We should make that one!"  Turns out my stepmother Claudia designed the shirt!  Perfect!   Once I figured out the design, I needed a base to make the tooth on.  My awesome stepmom said she could make one.  Really? Wow!  She and my Dad went to the workshop and came back with a wooden base to build the cake around.  

I covered the bottom half of the base with rice crispy treats (actually they were fruity rice crispy treats, yumm!).  I baked four 10" round Italian Cream Cakes  to make the top portion of the tooth.  Once I had the bottom the way I wanted I covered that in fondant.  Then, I worked on the top.  I carved the top to make it look more tooth like.  Once that was completed, I covered the top half in fondant and made the face.  We were cracking jokes all night.  I was doing root canals, and fillings.  So silly!

The base was a premade cake board, but it turned out not to be strong enough to hold the cake, so we placed a pan under it. 

 I used fondant to do the lettering, 

and covered the edge of the cake board with pretty silver dotted black ribbon. 

The final details: We found a "cap" at the craft store, and they just so happened to have a giant red toothbrush in the house, go figure!  Claudia made the arms and the dental tool to match the t-shirt picture (did I mention she is a very talented artist?) and attached them to the cake.  You can kind of see her cute t-shirt on the right side of the cake with the tooth image on it.  

My Rock Star Sis and I.
Congratulations Melissa!!  I'm so proud of you!!