Yoda cake - test me it did!

There's only one thing for it when you have a Star Wars uber fan in your household and it's their birthday.

I have a daughter who happens to be Star Wars mad, so for her birthday it had to be something Star Wars based for her cake, but what?

There are so any characters to choose from...

Having researched a few different ideas online, I decided to go with my own take on the iconic Yoda.

There are some phenomenal 3D Yoda cakes out there, but I know my limits, so I started by creating two circular cakes. One for the head and the other for his oversized ears.

Next, I shaped the eyes and got them to the right size for my cake, adding layers of green fondant icing to make them appear wrinkled.

When I was happy with the size of the eyes I started on the other facial features. It's worth noting the small circles of white icing - this just 'makes' the eyes.

I started on the nose and mouth and placed them on greaseproof paper, then laid them on top of the cake to ensure it was all in proportion.

Then I cut the second circular cake into two pointy ear shapes and cut out a hole in the middle for the centre of the ear.

I use wooden kebab sticks as dowling rods, to ensure the ears stay fixed to the side of Yoda's head. It looks a bit odd, but I promise once the green icing is laid over the top, they will look more like Yoda's ears.

Once the icing has been applied, covering the face and ears, it's then time to add more rolls of icing and gently use a sharp knife to create the illusion of wrinkles.

The more wrinkles the better!

I also added more layers of icing over the eyelids which helped to make him look more like Yoda.

The nose was a little tricky and I used the end of a wooden spoon to make his nostrils.

Here's the final shot of my Yoda head.

My 8 year old was happy and despite a few reservations in the initial stages, I was pretty happy with the result too.

(Although, it has to be said I'm not a fan of fondant icing!)

As Yoda would say "Do or do not, there is no try".