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Dappled Dino Cake

After learning all about Jurassic times at school, Garrett Jarboe of Oroville, California, had a request for his tenth birthday that was quite a tall order: Could he have a birthday cake that looked like a dinosaur? Mom Glenda quickly rose to the occasion, creating a colossal stegosaurus complete with a colorful row of candy corn plates. While Glenda's dinosaur had a head, legs, and a tail shaped out of frosting, ours has appendages made from packaged dunking cookies -- an option for those who'd rather not rely on their sculpting skills.
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Ingredients

3 16-ounce tubs of white frosting
Red and blue food coloring
9-inch round cake
1 package of Stella D'oro toast (or other Biscotti)
Wooden toothpicks

2 wooden kitchen skewers
Candy corn
12 mini chocolate chips
2 mini candy dots
Pastry bag with wide, round tip

Instructions

Cut the cake in half and sandwich the halves together, flat sides facing, with a layer of frosting in between. Set the cake upright with the cut side down, using a few dabs of frosting to stick it to the serving plate, if needed.
Tint the 2 full tubs of frosting purple and the contents of the remaining tub blue. We got a nice shade of purple by mixing 5 drops of blue and 7 drops of red food coloring into each tub. For blue, we mixed 9 drops of blue and 2 drops of red into the tub.
For the dinosaur's appendages, carefully cut the Stella D'oro toast into pieces as specified at right. Use a toothpick to attach the head to the neck and the base of the tail to the tip, applying dabs of frosting between the pieces for extra sticking power.
Now trim the base of the neck to fit the curve of the body and use the wooden kitchen skewers to attach it to the cake. Set the tail in place, using more frosting to stick the base to the cake. Likewise, stick the legs and then the toes in place against the sides of the cake.
Using a pastry bag fitted with a wide, round tip, and working from the bottom up to just below the top of the head, back, and tail, cover the dinosaur with peaks of purple icing. Now add blue frosting to the bag and continue piping until the entire dinosaur is covered. If the frosting is too soft to hold its shape, chill it (in the bag) for a few minutes.
For the final touches, add candy corn plates, mini chocolate chip claws, and candy dot eyes. (Note: when serving the cake, be sure to remove any toothpicks or skewers.