Jungle Cake - can anyone help?

[Limelight]

Righto. DS wants a jungle cake for his 5th birthday in June and his favourite animal is a snake (although this changes on a weekly basis).

I'm a competent but not amazing baker. I can use fondant and can pipe icing a little bit (anything too complex brings me out in a cold sweat).

So I want to make something a bit challenging (for me!) but achievable! I feel a bit devoid of ideas so can anyone help?!

Thanks so much!

I saw a tall narrow cake with tree trunks up the sides and leaves on the top like the jungle canopy.
Lots of eyes, peering out, possibly a monkey. Could certainly add jelly snakes.

A snake is easy if you can get a ring tin. Cut the ring at an angle into sections and line them up to make the wiggley snake body and decorate! It won't serve loads though if it's a big party....

Hope that made sense. I wish I could draw a diagram!!

Both sound like great ideas. Thanks! I'm sure I can get a ring tin somewhere.

I'm doing a jungle cake for DS's 4th birthday in a few weeks, the Australian Womans Weekly cake book has a great one, tall round maybe three sandwich tin layers, dark green butter cream icing all over and best of all its textured messy so no fuss, flakes all around the sides for trees, light green royal icing cut into leaves piled on top, plastic monkeys from a barrel and other small plastic bugs if you have to hand, The natural confectionery company snakes would work well, they show candy banana's and pineapples stuck to the icing too but I'm not sure if you can get here in the UK.

I'm like you, competent but not legendary and I felt this cake was very achievable (after vetoing the pirate treasure chest made out of melted chocolate!!)

They also have a snake in the cake book, three ring tin cakes cut and kind of layered on top of each other - also very achievable!

I thoroughly recommend the Australian Womans Weekly birthday cake books, they are step by step and include the cake patterns that you trace on to greaseproof paper, toothpick to the cake and cut your design out. I made DD a butterfly for her first birthday last week and it was awesome!

This would be very easy to do and looks very impressive.

You could use these

and maybe make fairy cakes with these as toppers to carry the theme through

just search on "jungle cake" using google images.

I've found some fab ideas that way.

Colin caterpillars from M&S. Look jungly and taste nice.

I also did the one kiwidreamer is talking about, but also hollowed out the middles of the lower two layers of round sponge, and crammed it full of those 'sour snake' sweeties, that came slithering out when DS cut into it, which was a huge surprise for him, and satisfyingly yeuchy!

I will send you a photo by email which is easier than describing how to do it, if you pm me...it was a doddle to make (compared to the fairy castle with turrets i tried for DD one year...)

Oooh timetosmile that's very clever!

It really is! I'm so doing that!

Well, to be frank, ladies, they kind of splurged out slowly rather than slithered in an Indiana Jones-esque screamfest, which I had hoped for.
But still yeurchy enough for the 10year old boys!
I think the trick is to use the smallest sweetie snakes you can find and really cram them in.

I have uploaded the photo to my profile.

Disclaimer..this was made at 1am after an unexpected trip to A+E with my daughter and her cut foot, rather than at the scheduled 'cake decorating' time, so forgive the 'slapped on' icing!