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Updated on December 2, 2021 by · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Indian Elephant Showpiece Tutorial

Skill level: Advanced

I created this showpiece for the Incredible India Cake Collaboration and I'm so excited to share the process that went into creating this piece with you today.

While this piece isn't made out of cake, you will learn what it takes to create a piece like this, how to plan out the cake structure, carving the shapes, adding the Ganesh cake topper, creating the umbrella and details on the elephant, and the anatomy of the elephant itself.

2:13:12 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • Learn how to create a realistic elephant out of edible materials
  • How to scale a model from a figure and check your work
  • Learn how create Ganesh as a cake topper
  • Liz Marek's tips to getting any model right when using reference
  • Learn how add fringe details, hand-painted designs and details
  • How to create the unique umbrella shape

Tutorial Chapters

  1. Scaling the elephant 0:32
  2. Making the structure 4:38
  3. Covering in rice cereal 14:41
  4. Conditioning the Gumpaste 20:20
  5. Rolling out the Gumpaste 20:47
  6. Trimming the legs 22:19
  7. Rolling out fondant 23:25
  8. Applying gold leaf 26:13
  9. Covering board in fondant 27:53
  10. Pouring the isomalt 30:13
  11. Shaping the rice cereal 37:31
  12. Covering in modeling chocolate 47:20
  13. Sculpting the body 53:07
  14. Sculpting the head 1:00:43
  15. Sculpting the eyes 1:05:43
  16. Creating lines and wrinkles 1:06:48
  17. Making the toe nails 1:16:00
  18. Making the eyelids 1:17:32
  19. Making the tusks 1:19:18
  20. Making the tail 1:20:57
  21. Painting the elephant 1:24:09
  22. Detailing the head 1:28:24
  23. Fondant decorations 1:30:03
  24. Painting the fondant 1:33:31
  25. Painting the umbrella 1:35:10
  26. Making the bling 1:36:46
  27. Making the fringe 1:43:33
  28. Making extra decorations 1:45:27
  29. Making Ganesh body 1:48:52
  30. Making the arms 1:55:00
  31. Making the jewelry 1:57:41
  32. Making the trunk 2:01:10
  33. Making the eyes 2:02:33
  34. Painting flowers 2:07:22
  35. Making anklets 2:07:49
  36. Making accents 2:09:17
  37. Adding the Ganesh 2:11:53

More Course Preview

About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.