The World Of Warcraft Deathwing Cake: Meet Its Maker

What happens when your encounter the Deathwing in the massively popular role-playing game World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm? It's a dragon that rains flaming death from above. You die, your raid party dies, and the entire virtual world feels its wrath. Back in the meat world, you can take revenge by baking the Deathwing cake and eating it too.

Meet full-time mom, amateur cake-baker, and Huntsville, Alabama-based blogger Renée White of The Domestic Scientist who'll share some tips for crafting your own World of Warcraft-inspired cake.

Renée White

Squid Ink: For those that don't play World of Warcraft, explain what a Deathwing is and why it's so badass.

Renée White: Deathwing's story is so long and involved, it's hard to break it down into one sentence. To keep it short, Deathwing the Destroyer, an immortal dragon, used to be a good guy, but now he's gone insane and decided to kill everyone. He's so badass that just the event of him entering the realm of Azeroth (home to us Warcrafters) causes earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, the whole nine yards of world-ending events.

SI: Tell us about the flavors in the cake.

RW: The cake was a spice cake, with butter cream icing.

SI: Did you use rolled fondant, or something else for the cake's skin?

RW: I did use rolled fondant. Duff brand, to be exact. I highly recommend it: super-silky and tastes awesome!

SI: Your husband Alex bought you an airbrush for Christmas. I'm guessing you have previous experience with one? How is spraying food different from spraying other media?

RW: Ha! Fooled you! I had never used an airbrush before this cake. I practiced on some butcher paper before trying it on the cake, though. And watched a lot of videos on how to use an airbrush. I have had experience with painting d20 miniatures before (nerd alert!) so I used some of the tricks I've learned over the years with those on this cake.

SI: How did you achieve the semi-metallic look of this cake?

RW: That part is easy: metallic airbrush colors! I shaded the cake a little more dramatically than I would a normal painting, and then went over the “highlighted” areas with the metallics.

SI: What did you use for the orange eye of the dragon?

Credit: The Domestic Scientist

Credit: The Domestic Scientist

RW: That was just a ball of fondant that I painted yellow, then shaded the rims with orange and red to make it look like it was glowing. Then added some heavy metallic white to the front to give it that extra kick.

SI: How you did you start your blog and why?

RW: I started it when I was first staying at home after my son was born. Essentially, while being a mom was fun, I was bored out of my gourd. At the time we lived in the middle of nowhere and I had no friends nearby to talk to. When the highlight of your day is talking to Dora the Explorer, you realize you need more social interaction.

SI: Do you have a favorite food blog (besides your own)?

RW: The blog I check every single day is cakewrecks.com. Does that count as a food blog, or is that humor? Either way, Jen Yates has cake and jokes; two things that make my day better.

SI: Your blog shows several other of your geek-cake projects like a TARDIS cake, a robot cake, and an R2D2 cake. Deathwing is upping your visual-presentation game to another league. What inspired you to make this one extra-special?

RW: It's kind of a mixture of things. First off, new airbrush! New toy! I really wanted to see what it could do. Secondly, I am always trying to push myself as a novice baker. I get more experience with every cake, and this one just worked out… mostly. Did you know originally the cake had six horns on the back of Deathwing's head? Yup – gravity was not my friend that night. And lastly, I love World of Warcraft.

SI: How do you come up with the ideas for your cake projects?

RW: I base all my cake ideas on whomever they're made for. I have a large group of nerdy friends here in Huntsville, so there is at least one birthday a month that needs a geeky cake.

SI: What's the next food project for you?

RW: My best friend's son is turning eight in February. I'm leaning towards a Phineas and Ferb cake since he's totally obsessed with that cartoon.

Credit: The Domestic Scientist

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