Dinosaur Excavation Cake with Shortbread Bones

[hannah b]

Hi everyone! I am making a friend a dinosaur excavation cake. The original plan is to make a thicker sponge mix (vanilla and choc to create earth layers) and then put pre baked shortbread bones in the cake mix.
Do you think the short bread would hold??????

 

[connie]

The shortbread should be fine, but even if it doesn't hold very well, isn't that part of the 'excavation'? Not everything survives fossilisation!
I can't help feeling you need some dog biscuits for this!

I did once do a stables scene for a cake for my little sister who was madly into horses at the time. I actually embedded several plastic ponies into the cake mixture so that there were ponies at some of the stable doors. You could consider something similar if you kept a tally of how many items were embedded in the cake and where and made sure you knew how got what and the likes. If it was restricted to certain areas of the cake then it would be safe, make sure they are not small enough to be a problem, so I was thinking larger 'bones' that you can't cut through for example and they would be easy to put in because we all know fossils come in layers and folds in the land, so between different colours layers of sponge would be ideal! just some random ideas - not everything has to be edible and if it is large enough... you could even run a competition for finding these things so the kids (I assume) would be on the look out for them and you can swap them out of presents or the likes. random ideas, like I said. Carefully done and managed it would be a fun project and not a problem.

 

[Zyni]

Good point, Connie. Not every part of the decoration has to be edible. You could even make salt-dough bones if you wanted. It's just two parts flour to one part salt, a bit of cold water. It should be the consistency of Playdough. Just form, bake at 250 F for two hours to harden. Make sure everyone knows they're not edible, and you're good to go.

 

[hannah b]

Thanks for those suggestions. You've both been SUPER helpful!
And the cake is for a 27 year old. No joke haha. I'm fulfilling a childhood dream for her lol!!

 

[hannah b]

Good point, Connie. Not every part of the decoration has to be edible. You could even make salt-dough bones if you wanted. It's just two parts flour to one part salt, a bit of cold water. It should be the consistency of Playdough. Just form, bake at 250 F for two hours to harden. Make sure everyone knows they're not edible, and you're good to go.

Thanks Zyni that is a great idea I hadn't thought of. Do you think that once I make the salt dough 'bones' and bake them, I would be able to put them in the cake mix as its cooking? I want the bones already embedded into the cake.

 

[Zyni]

Hmmm... that I'm not sure about. I was thinking of kind of wriggling them in after baking. I've never baked the dough decorations inside the cake before. I'll let you know if I come across any info on this.

Ha. I just saw your other post. I think it's cool that you're doing it for her. We're never too old for fun!