Game of Thrones Cake

We’re big fans of Game of Thrones in our house, and, yes, I even have one of those “Mother of Dragons” shirts.  As I write this, it’s the night before the airing of the final episode, and we’ve been speculating all week over how the series is going to end. So just for fun, I made a Game of Thrones cake for the event. My cake features a map of Westeros, printed on edible wafer paper wrapped around the cake, a gold crown cake topper, and a House Stark banner.

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House Stark Banner

While I like the whimsy of being the mother of my own little dragons, I’ve always believed that the Starks and Jon Snow would prevail in the end, and I don’t think I’m going to be proven wrong.  So in support of my theory, I topped my cake with the House Stark banner.  I made the banner from a scrap of linen fabric, which I painted by hand with their dire wolf logo. Then I hot-glued the banner to a wooden skewer to insert into the cake.  If you look up images of their banners hanging from the walls of Winterfell, I think you’ll find that mine looks pretty accurate!  I thought it looked just gorgeous placed on top of the cake.

Map of Westeros

For the cake decoration, I mulled over quite a few different ideas, from trying to recreate the map of Westeros in buttercream, to breaking out a food-safe airbrush kit my husband bought for me a few years ago which I haven’t had the courage to use yet, to a simple buttercream finish with some fancy piping.  But I really loved the idea of a map. And since I knew I didn’t have the time (or skill) to try to create that kind of detail myself, I decided to look into wafer paper.

Wafer paper is an edible paper, usually made from rice flour or potato flour, and is commonly used in cake decorating.  You can buy sheets of it at craft stores, usually in solid colors or basic patterns like stripes, polkadots or chevron. If you have a dedicated food-safe printer, you can print any image using food-grade ink, for absolutely unlimited custom creations.  I bought mine from a seller on Etsy; her prices were quite affordable, shipping was quick, and the Westeros & Essos map looked absolutely beautiful printed on the wafer paper.

Assembling the Cake

The seller included very specific instructions for the best way to apply the paper, and how to store the cake to preserve the paper’s beauty, until time to serve the cake.  I started with my best chocolate cake recipe, which I baked in five 6-inch pans for a small, extra tall cake). Immediately after frosting the cake and smoothing the buttercream out, I applied the paper before the buttercream had a chance to crust over on the surface.  The paper stuck easily to the fresh buttercream, and went on looking smooth and perfect.  The instructions said not to refrigerate the cake, or the moisture could wrinkle the paper. So I left the cake sitting out at room temperature for about eight hours before we ate the cake this evening, and during that time, I didn’t notice any wrinkling or color bleeding in the paper, which I was incredibly pleased about.

Now, if you’re wondering what it tastes like, and if it’s something you’d want to eat, it’s about as pleasant to eat as fondant, which is to say that while it is technically edible, it’s not something you’re going to eat.  Before cutting the cake, I decided to just peel the paper off and smooth out the frosting again, and the cake was as soft and moist as could be.  Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with a cake decoration that is just pretty to look at, even if it’s not something you can eat.

You might also remember the gold crown topper from a princess cake I made for a friend a few years ago, and my friend was kind enough to loan me the crown to use for this cake.  I think it makes the perfect royal touch.

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