Baked Potato Cake

 

It's potluck time again at work!  The theme for this potluck is a baked potato bar so as soon as I found that out I immediately knew that I had to make a giant baked potato cake.  There are actually a few examples of baked potato cakes on the internet so between those and pictures of actual baked potatoes, I was able to come up with a pretty good idea of how I'd pull this cake off.  

I started by baking and stacking three 9" x 13" cakes.  I didn't worry about getting the filling icing all the way to the edge since they would be trimmed off anyway.  

After stacking and refrigerating the cakes I cut it into a potato shape.  Starting by just making the vertical cuts, then going back and rounding the edges.

I chilled the cake again then put a nice layer of vanilla buttercream over the entire thing.  While it was chilling again, I rolled out the fondant and prepared to cover the cake.

I used the marshmallow fondant recipe that I show here to make both the chocolate fondant for the potato and the colored fondant for the toppings.  I made a full batch for the brown, and only a quarter batch for the toppings.  To cover the potato I rolled the fondant out into a pretty even layer then wound it back around the rolling pin to unwind it over the cake.  Then I just smoothed it down and trimmed the excess.

Then it was time to make it look like the potato skin was peeled back.  I cut out an oval of fondant then split the edges and pulled them back.  A little more icing in the middle made the potato filling and I kinda swirled it around to make it fluffy.  To really try and make it look like a baked potato, I dabbed some cocoa powder to the fondant to give it that kind of dry/dirty look.

Then I made made the bacon bits, green onions, cheese and butter.  A little foil around the base and a dollop of cool whip for sour cream finished it off.  The cheese is a little more orange than I'd like, but I think you get the idea :)

 

I had a lot of fun making this cake and am very happy with the result.  That's it for tonight, I hope you all have a great 3 day weekend!