When I binged Tuca & Bertie shortly after its release, there were two things I wanted to make: crunts and a Gamby cake. I was frying up crunts within 24 hours of the show dropping, but sadly my schedule meant that’d be all I could do for a while. Lisa Hanawalt was kind enough to DM me on Twitter about the crunts, and when I mentioned wanting to make a Gamby cake she encouraged me to go for it. (Side note: I’ve had a couple internet interactions with her now and she’s always so damn nice.) I made a mental note to go to Gamby-town the next time I had a light week.
That light week has finally come. Hilariously enough, while I waited for the cake to chill I scrolled through Instagram and saw this call to arms for everyone to make Gamby cakes. To be honest, I was kind of kicking myself for not getting to it sooner! Oh well. There are worse things in the world than my Gamby cake being awash with fellow Gambys. I actually think she’d like it.
For anyone who’s totally lost, the first episode of Tuca & Bertie features a cake possessed by Bertie’s boyfriend’s grandmother. The cake is the culmination of the episode’s events, and this is a good indicator of what a wild start to the series that episode is. There’s grandma ashes baked into cakes, turtles running off with sugar bowls, bully nets for mean penguins and lots of boobs.
Anyway, let’s get started! This cake required 4 colors of buttercream: grey/lavender, dark green, dark pink and white. It also required 5 shades of fondant (most of them matching the buttercream): grey/lavender, bright minty green, dark pink, light pink and white.
First off, all the buttercream work. I iced the cake in the lavender/grey color and piped on some pink borders using a fat round tip. The borders in the show are a vaguely wonky squiggle kinda deal, so I just kind of got as close as I could with an elongated bead style border that extended much further over the corners than I’d usually pipe. Next up, I piped little flower stems in dark green icing and topped them with white dots. I also added dragees to the base (and later to the white flower tips as well).
The rest was fondant work! For Gamby’s beak, I sculpted a flattened cone of fondant by hand and with a spatula. I don’t even know how to write a specific description for this process beyond “I squished it around with my fingers a lot.”
The eyes were two white fondant balls with thin strips of light grey for eyelids, set on punched out grey 6 petal flower shapes. I nestled them in some corn starch to dry so that they’d have a curved shape.
I used a basic smaller 6 petal flower cutter for the flowers. I also used a smaller 5 petal one because I unfortunately only had 2 sizes of the 6 petal. It still looked great! I rolled them out thickly for a chunkier look. To give them a cupped shape, I used a metal ball tool. Press it softly into the center while cupping the flower with your hands, and use a swirling motion to thin the center out. The edges will naturally curl.
The large leaves for the top were also just a simple cutter, though I used a knife to make an indentation in the center of each one and laid them out curved in various directions to dry. For the small leaves, I had to get more creative. I used the petals from a daisy cutter shape and trimmed them down a bit.
Beyond that, it was just assembly! It’s not in the show, but I added some dragees into the flower centers to pull things together.
BE A GOOD BOY AND EATCHA GAMBY!
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