Thursday, October 9, 2008

Had a dilly of a time with this cake!



My son's best friend's mom and I have become friends and she asked me to make a cake for her IL's 50th wedding anniversary, which HAPPENS to fall on Yom Kippur, so I was a bit nervous. I decided to make TWO, one to start out on, and one to "perfect".

I got them both put together last night to decorate this morning and I was quite skeptical. I SHOULD have taken a picture of them then to compare as you won't believe me unless you are used to seeing "naked" cakes. Last night they looked like HUGE stacked marshmallow snowmen. I thought they looked lumpy and so imperfect. This morning they didn't look so bad (I guess I was super critical last night), but still... How would those marshmallow snowmen transform into elegant cakes?

But, let me start from the beginning: First, the cake was to be a somewhat mini cake. The bottom tier is 6" diameter. The middle is 4.5" and the top is 3". I've never worked with small layers before and it's a bit tricky. First, you don't bake them in small pans, but actually cookie cutter them out of a bigger cake (keeps them moister that way and flatter and more even.

So, on to assembly. First, I made it too tall, like WAY too tall, so I had to chop the "spare" down to size. I doweled it and every time I SWEAR I'm going to smash my cake when I put a dowel all the way through top to bottom. NEXT, came the scary marshmallow snowmen and that's where I left it last night.

This morning I started with dusting it gold. BUT... I got too close for air brushing and had to wipe it all off and start over (you should see the pretty sparkles on my kitchen counter now! (oops!). Then to figure out how to attach the little round balls to the side of the cake and to do the border. (I've never done drops before). For the spare, I decided to just make icing dots on the side to figure out placement (glad I did that!).

OK, then it was time to do the real one and as I worked, I just saw it transform into a cake I'm actually proud of! It's not just the picture that looks nice - I really did a decent job of it!

I don't think my giant marshmallow snowmen are recognizable now... I LOVE this cake... I've been making some weird (not too showy) cakes for awhile, so it was fun to do a "pretty" cake for a change. Now what to do with the spare?

2 comments:

Hannah said...

Hi,
Have you ever made an Oh the Places you'll go cake? I am trying to make one and would love to look at some pictures. Please email me at hannah679 at yahoo dot com( I wrote it like that so I won't get spam!)
Thank you!
Hannah

Anonymous said...

nice to be here.... thanks for share