Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal

Submitter's Comments:
I absolutely love all things Space so there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to create The Curious Collector into a cake! There were so many challenges involved in designing it as cake and I was very excited to develop a "game plan." The easiest part was deciding what was going to be cake: obviously went with the sphere!
Since this cake was for the competition and I was the only one that was going to cut into it, I opted to make the bottom hemisphere out of rice krispies treats. It took about 40 bars of rice krispies to shape the hemisphere. To make the process easier, I used the dome pan that I baked the cake in! I first sprayed the pan with PAM to make sure the rice krispies would release and then squished the treats into the pan. This took about a half hour to do. In order to firm up the bottom hemisphere, I let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
The trickiest part of this design were the planets!! I thought about it long and hard and new that whatever I chose to do had to be LIGHT. I decided to try a brand new technique using balloons and gelatin. The idea was to create gelatin bubbles! I blew the balloons to the size I wanted, secured them to tooth picks, and then mixed together the gelatin (two parts gelatin to 1 part water) in a bowl. I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then started dipping the balloons into the gelatin. I did this about 5 times to each balloon, allowing the gelatin to dry between dips. I had to make sure I created a thick enough shell for my bubble. Once done, I allowed the balloons to dry overnight so the gelatin could cure. Once cured, I cut the tied end of the balloon off and scraped the balloon out of the gelatin. I was left with beautiful and light bubbles! I painted each bubble to represent each planet. Painting is not my forte so it took me 2 hours to paint the planets!
The little girl was created with fondant. I traced her outline on parchment paper, cut out the design with an exacto knife, rolled out the fondant I colored and cut her out!

The cake itself was first baked in a dome pan and allowed to cool. I filled it with vanilla buttercream and placed it on top of the bottom hemisphere. The entire sphere was then coated with chocolate ganache that I made and allowed to set (chocolate ganache hardens as it cools). During this time I began to color my fondant blue for the night sky. I rolled out the fondant and covered the sphere. I rolled out extra fondant to be able to cover the cake board as well.
Next came securing the planets: I used white chocolate which I colored blue to "glue" the planets to the cake. It took about 30 minutes to get this done. The next tricky part was creating a ring for saturn. I first tried making it out of isomalt, and although I succeeded in making a pretty ring it was too heavy to secure onto the gelatin. So instead of risking my planet, I tossed away 25 minutes worth of work and created a ring using fondant.
The next step was painting all the details! I used edible food coloring for all the details. The stars were by far the easiest. As I said before, painting is not my forte, so creating all the painted details took another hour. The trees weren't too bad but the balloon strings gave me a lot of trouble because I couldn't keep my stroke light enough. In the end, it looked great!
The cake of course was delicious! I make my buttercream with wholesome butter and the flavor of my vanilla buttercream is very rich and tasty! The dark chocolate ganache adds a perfect contrast and balances out the sweetness!

Thanks for the wonderful competition! I had so much fun creating this!! I want to thank the original designer for inspiring me! Thanks to them I learned a lot of new techniques I can use on future cakes!

-Shantal