Ben's Camping Cake

As mentioned before, I have been camping several times with some ex co-worker friends of mine up to Rifle River Recreation area. One of my fellow rustic campers, Ben, was having a birthday recently and having us all over to try out some pulled pork in his new smoker, so I thought it was a perfect chance to surprise him with a great cake.


I asked the other Rustics to see if they had any ideas for a great cake and eventually I came up with the plan - it would be a scene from camping, where the infamous pesky raccoons have come into camp and rifle through all our stuff.

These raccoons were not your average every day raccoons, they were giant raccoons that would peer at us from up in the trees in the darkness, just waiting for us to go to bed as we sat around our campfire. We could see their eyes reflecting in the moonlight!

On a few occasions, the raccoons just went too far. They broke open our coolers (these guys are smarter than you'd think) and ate our tortillas and entire bags of chips and raw bratwursts...... "so you're telling me no breakfast burritos?" It was heartbreaking!

As an attempt to fend off some of the coons, we also tried leaving them spicy foods laden with hot sauce, to try and teach them a lesson. It turns out these raccoons were apparently well accustomed to spicy food as they ate it all and we found them licking the plates.

Anyway, the cake shows a classic tent (though no one has a tent like that anymore do they?) made out of fondant (I dried it in a teepee shape and it held its shape fine), as well as raccoons, the cooler, fire ring, and rocks also made out of fondant. I used powdered food coloring with vodka and a paintbrush to color the tent, coons, rocks, fire ring, and cooler in various colors.

The rest of the cake is buttercream frosting, except for the fake axe and the pretzel "logs." It was great fun to attempt to make raccoons out of sugar paste and I am glad I had a chance to relive some fun times with my friends. Enjoy!