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.