The Saddest Dalek

Dalek cupcakes are an amazingly difficult confection to make. A quick Google image search [link] shows lots of really lame attempts. I now have a better understanding of why.

The subject came up recently and Yummy liked the idea. So, I decided to try to make a couple for our 11th month anniversary.

My plan was to make cupcakes, lop the top off one and flip the remainder over, trim the edges off another so at no point was it wider than the base, cement them together with frosting, frost it all gray, cut graham crackers into small rectangles to place around the base, frost them some other color, attach candy bumps to the graham
crackers, more candy bumps on the top, and a Pocky type candy for the eye stalk.

The cake we made is very spongy, but it cut rather well with a good sharp knife. When compared with a Dalek it was pretty squat. I cut the edges off a third cupcake, lopped off the curved top, and made that the middle section. The proportions were about right.

The black frosting dye turned out to be really deep purple. When mixed with white frosting we got a very purply color. While frosting the cupcakes the tower kept slowly leaning in one direction. It was gonna fall over soon. A stick of Pocky-like substance was jammed through the top to act as a spine. Anything that stuck up got cut off and frosted over.

If I did it again I'd frost them all separately and then stack them.

The frosting wasn't very friendly either. I needed something firmer or something. It wasn't fond of sticking to the cupcake but liked the spatula I was using. The Dalek had little sugary tendrils whipping about.

At this point I was happy with the proportions, but that's about it. We'd started late and it was getting later. I skipped the graham crackers and attached the candy eyes we picked up at a cake supply store directly to the bottom cupcake. One third of a stick of Pocky-like substance got stuck in his face for an eye stalk. Something narrower would be better. Something a mini-marshmallow could be stuck on. It got no weapon or suction cup arm.

It looked better than many I've seen, but still sucked. I learned a lot that could be used in later attempts.

As awful as it looked it still would have passed for a monster in the
original Dr Who.