For my final birthday cake, I wanted to create the chest burster, and was originally going to make another black forest cake, but we still had leftovers from the first one. I opted instead to go with a spice cake made from a french vanilla box cake mix.

I used the lower fat version on the box – using applesauce instead of oil, and added about 1 tsp of each – cardamon, allspice, cinnamon,and ginger to the cake batter.

I proceeded as per the box and chose to use 3 pans instead of 2 to speed the cooking time and it gave me more layering of flavours!

Once the cakes cooled, I wanted to have a nice gentle flavour without being too sweet, so I had purchased some pre-made dulce de leche, and mixed about ⅓ cup with a few tablespoons of heavy cream and whipped it all together. I think butterscotch pudding would work in a pinch too 🙂

After slicing off the domes of the layers – making them all level,  I stacked the three layers with apple sauce and the dulce/whip fillings.

 

To create a nice base for the insertion of Fred, I built up the top with more sauce and cream filling and the sliced off domes, cutting the centre hole for Fred.

And on to normal cake finishing – notes with each picture.

The final addition is – let’s call him Fred!

I made him from rice crispie treats. I used pre-made ones as I did not want to purchase everything to make them and have leftover marshmallows etc. – but they are nut free…

stacking and squeezing

The moulding chocolate was a new adventure and these folks here explained it best – so click to check their link – you can see most of the details there.

The difference with mine is that I used honey as a direct substitute for corn syrup and it worked perfectly.

And TADA !

Kneaded and moulded around the base and carved:

And finally  – fully set up at the party:

Two middle stages of Xenomorph life and the Birthday Guy!