Pegasus Cake with Meringue Wings

Unicorn cakes are all the rage right now but my mother is a fan of pegasus not unicorns so for her birthday I wanted to make a pegasus cake and I found a great reference picture that did this with meringue wings.

So to start I had to try out the meringue wings. I traced some wings on to a piece of paper and put that under some wax paper. when my meringue was ready I put it into a piping back with a leaf tip. Starting with the longest bottom feathers I worked my way up the wing feather by feather. As I pulled away from each feather it pulled up a little but this adds some dimension to the wings that I liked. I finished the tops with some rosette swirls and baked them on 275 for over an hour.

I had lots of extra meringue so I piped it out into swirls to add to my cake as part of the mane later.

Next came the cake. My mum's favorite is angel food so I actually bought them from the store and let me say that getting them out of those containers in one piece was a challenge. I carved them down into a cylinder and filled the center with strawberries and cream. I gave the whole thing a crumb coat in a Chantilly frosting

For the final coat I used straight whipped cream for a pure white appearance.

I did a little experimenting with the ears trying to dip them after cutting (left) or cut them after the white chocolate had set just a little (right). The cutting after the coat had set was definitely a cleaner look and is now my go to but you have to make sure the white chocolate isn't too hard or it'll chip right off your strawberry when you cut it.

This is the point I got to before I ran out of green buttercream. These cakes always take more icing then I think they will for the hair and since I had no time to go out for more ingredients (and dye) I had to improvise and use my whipped cream to make more green for swirls. It wasn't near as dark and the line is very visible from the top.







My mom loved it and she didn't even notice the flaws although she did remind me that she hates whipped cream (but loves chantilly....so....yeah)

Another successful cake from last year. Wonder what I'll do for her this year....