Year of the Rat

Our first commissioned cake! Sarah and I had a sit down with some soon to be parents who wanted a baby shower cake that was definitely not ordinary. This was either a cake maker's dream or worst nightmare, because we were given free reign to make the cake however we wanted. So Sarah and I focused on two things... 1. The mother was Chinese, and 2. They didn't know what sex the baby was. Right away, Sarah pointed out that in Chinese Astrology, this was the year of the rat. That totally peaked my interest because I was looking to make a cake with an edible character on it. To address the surprise of what the baby was going to be, we used both pink and blue for the baby block, and added a question mark to the top. The rat covers most of it unfortunately. The couple are also into cooking, so I took a detour in the design toward the character Remy from Ratatouille.
Now that the back story is out of the way, here's the cooking process...

Sarah came up with a really nice combination of vanilla cake and custard and peach fillings. Again, I have to say, the cake may look great, but if it doesn't taste great... it doesn't work. And let me tell you, the cake went fast. Plus, the fillings helped to keep the cake moist. The block was covered in fondant, and I used food coloring to paint in woodgrain detail and shadows around the raised letters. The Rat was made of rice treats that I pre-pounded and crushed so the final mixture would be smoother. After the basic form was made, Sarah mixed a batch of blue-grey chocolate and covered the sculpture. I came in and added the modeling chocolate for ears, eyes, hands, feet, nose and tail. The whiskers are peeled bamboo skewers.

I am pleased to say that the couple enjoyed their cake very much, both in design and flavor. Currently, Sarah and I are working on our second commissioned cake. Stop by after next week to see what we made.

The Train to Marshmallow Mountain

This Was A Fun Cake To Make! The inspiration behind this cake was the arrival of all of our family into town. Sarah and I wanted to make a fun cake that was especially appealing to the many toddlers running around. For Christmas, I bought Sarah a train mold for making cakes, and this seemed like the perfect time to use it. Taking it one step beyond, we developed a story-line, and decided we needed a mountain. We used two full boxes of Rice Crispies to make the mountain. The train tracks were made of modeling chocolate. The ground was made from yellow cake, and the train cars were vanilla pound cake. Sarah went to town making the animals, while I made the trailer home. We had the arms left over from Gnome cake, so they were added to the story, becoming the Giant of Marshmallow Mountain. Unfortunately he was run over by the train while digging for chocolate gems. A bit "Grimm" in style, but the kids really liked it. I really think this was a cake about having fun and family oriented. It wasn't as overly designed as I'm finding I'm partial to, but It was by far the best tasting cake I've had.

The Gnome in the Rotting Pumpkin

The Adventure Begins

Early this year, my wife Sarah and I decided on a new family activity... baking cakes. Now, it's important to mention that currently we are addicted to watching cooking shows. There was one specialty show called "Masters of Cakes" on WE channel. (This is not to be confused with Ace of Cakes on Food Network) Anyway, on Masters of Cakes, they showcased 5 or 6 bakers around the nation who all specialized in artistic cake. Personally, I was moved by this one baker in the Pacific Northwest who made a cake of a waterfall with a dog and duck meeting at the pool below. Sarah and I looked at each other after the show and said, "You know what, I bet we could make a cool cake too." And thus began The Great Cake Adventure. I'm not much of a cook, so Sarah has taken on that role with extreme confidence. I should point out that she's actually really good. It's very difficult not to eat the material while I'm working with it. Which leads to my role as decorator. For work, I build puppets, sets and props for stop-motion animated spots, short movies, and commercials. Obviously I get to sculpt the cakes. But at the end of the day, if the cake doesn't taste good... it's not successful. This is wholly a team effort.

The Gnome in the Rotting Pumpkin.
What a title for our first cake, but then, that's what it is. The story behind it was a welcoming of the new year, new seasons, and new additions to the family. Sarah baked yellow cake and devil's food cake with buttercream frosting. She then found a recipe for modeling chocolate, and made a fairly large batch for me to work with. While I worked on making the gnome, Sarah poured the molds for the fall colored leaves. From start to finish, the whole thing took a couple of days, and was totally worth it. To celebrate, we had a family gathering with as many kids as possible. There was quite a yelling match about who got to eat the head of the gnome.