Bionix Tank Cake

My hubby invited a bunch of his coworkers for dinner to celebrate Chinese New Year. Ok, so technically CNY ended yesterday, but it's still fun to celebrate the occasion. He casually mentioned to me last week that maybe I could make a bionix cake for dessert. I didn't want to get his hopes up because I was super busy caking this week...but I couldn't resist the challenge!

Bionix Armoured Fighting Vehicle Cake

Boy was he in for a surprise when he got home from work! There was a Bionix Tank cake waiting for him in the middle of the dining room! Haaaa. The cake is a brown sugar-vanilla eggless cake filled with caramel buttercream. I'm not really a fan of eggless cakes as they don't compare in taste and texture with that of cakes containing eggs. I actually used extra cake that I baked from this Frozen cake.

View from the side

The Bionix AFV (armoured fighting vehicle) is part of the Singapore Army's Armour regiment. It is produced in Singapore and only the Singapore Armed Forces has this vehicle in its ranks. Notice the license plate on the tank? 63042. Apparently the men in the units refer to the Bionix as "63s". The 042 represents the 42nd Battalion of the Singapore Armoured Regiment, which was the first battalion to be fully equipped with operationally ready Bionix AFVs. 

front of the tank

Ok enough military talk! Back to cake! Writing the license plate in teeny tiny writing using royal icing was really challenging! I tried to use round tip no. 1 to write but the icing just wouldn't come out. I had to use tip no. 2 and a toothpick to finally get legible numbers and letters on the plate! 

Fondant Tank tracks!

My favourite detail on the Bionix is the tank tracks! For the tracks, I cut a rectangular strip of fondant and used a wooden skewer to indent the surface. The wheels are made using the same technique as these fondant Chinese coins. The gun is made of fondant, which I rolled into a snake. It has a skewer running through it for support.

ready to roll out.

To get this shade of fondant for the tank, I mixed up Kelly Green and Black fondant and it came out the perfect shade of olive green! The Bionix is pretty much all cake, including the turret, which I carved into the right shape. Too bad that I made the turret flush with the back of the tank! The image I referred to on Google didn't have a rear view of the vehicle. Apparently there is a space between the turret and the back. Oops. 

"We Dare!" - 42 SAR slogan