3D
The Observer
by Ffyona Dudley · submitted Oct 30, 2014 · 2014 contest
1 / 51
Description
Well.... I have always wanted to enter a competition... but to be honest I have never thought I would take all that effort to make a cake and then have nothing to do with it after... I am already a chunky gal so that much cake to consume would do me noooo good. Now I am currently rehersing for a stage show of puss in boots at the local theatre... and it just so happened one of the chaps was having his 30th birthday and another chap was also celebrating a birthday the same week.... Hmmm I thought... this could be the oppertunity I have been looking for.. the timing couldn't have been better, and then I realised a design I have always loved was following a cat theme. Lets face it... it was fate. So after saying I would provide a cakie for the following week I set to work.
Obviously it would need to be chocolate as that is always popular, but I mixed it up a little with some fresh orange and an orange caramel. I started by making a traditional victoria sponge using the weight of the eggs as my guage for all other ingredients. Once the tins were lined and I had 'tested' the cake mix I popped them in the oven while my small and sticky munchkins (children) licked the bowls and spoons clean.
So cakies in the oven took about an hour to all be baked and out in one piece but one had sunk... disaster???? oh noooo... it just ment it would have to be levelled leaving a bunch of cake crumbs for us to munch ;)
What next... ohh yes. A chocolate orange buttercream was made and an orange caramel. Orange caramel was made by melting sugar with fresh squeezed orange juice instead of water. I had no idea if this would work but once it was reduced down it ws actually jolly yummy. My daughter came in to help at this point by taking pictures of me as I fell asleep on the mixer waiting for the caramel to turn...'yes very helpful Rowan' I said. So she hung about to taste the icing as by this point I was feeling a bit sick from all the sweet things I had 'needed' to test.
I left the cakes overnight to rest in the tins and the folloing morning after school runs I set to work. Out came the jigsaw, drills, wood and copper and plastic tubes... obviously... what else do you need when making a cake. I marked out the main base and cut this out but couldnt find a drill bit big enough to drill a hole for the centre post, so I made a small hole and used a stanley blade to gradually carve out a hole big enough...
Now for the base of the cat I asked my cat Duracell to come and pose for me.. I sketched out a rough shape and repeated the cutting and making of a hole.
Ok ... so with a pole in the middle made of a bit of plumbing pipe and the frame assembled I started to layer cake with butter icing to make a tower of cake with a pole sticking out the top. This was because I wanted to remove the pole once I had the cake covered in icing to make it completely free of structure. ;)
Now taking the picture I had printed of The Observer (fabulous image by the way) I began to carve the shape I was after in my mind.... or at least as close to what was in my mind as I was competant to do.
This was then covered in buttercream and popped in the freezer to harden up ready to cover in fondant icing.
While the cake was chillin' with the fishfingers I blended some skin tone colouring with my fondant and some tylose powder to help it haren a little and hold up the cake once I took the posts out. Next I mixed some royal icing and took a template of some cogs and covered it it the royal icing in the hope I would be able to pop them out once the icing had gone hard.......Ok in this I was very wrong..When I tried to take the cogs out I ended up with lots of tiny bits of crumbly icing and not a cog in site... So back to the drawing board and instead I took 3 hours to cut individual cogs from some sugar paste mixed with fondant using a little stanley blade.
Believe it or not by now it was time to collect the kidlets and feed them and the ravinous hubby as he came in from work. So I paused my creation food, bath and bed and back to it.
Now I worked until about 11pm covering the cake in fondant and adding a few details like the nose and the fur markings. I went to bed with the distinct feeling I had created a model of a cat queen nefertiti from the egyptians.(I had some odd dreams that night)
Ok.. day 3. Today was all about making it look like The Observer. So I used some sugar paste to make a thin rim for the hat, piped an edge to it to neaten it off and removed the support which let the cake slip down to the base board. I had originally wanted it to have the floating angle like in the image but due to transport issues and the crowd I was making it for, I made it flat to the base. I held my breath to see if the structure of the carving ect would hold.. which luckily it did.
Now last night I had also used lots of the cogs to be held together with royal icing to make the butterfly wings... today as they were set I went to place them on the hat.... but they were too big... argggghhhh. So the kids ate them and I made some more which were not as fancy but time was limited now if I was to deliver the cake in time. I made a clock face, some more cogs, added a belt and buckle to the hat and some big scrummy ears out of fondant.
Once all the details were addedd I had a bite to eat as I had realised I had skipped tea and lunch the following day, and got out my airbrush.
The cake was then sprayed in a sepia brown tone with lighter and darker areas, and then as I love the old brass steampunk look I then added a copper gold layer over him to give a metalic look.
Once this was dry... ( which I used the cooker fan and a hairdryer on the cold setting to speed up the process), I then drybrushed with some edible petal powders in pearl, black, brown, silver and white.The only non edible piece on the cake was the wiskers I am ashamed to say. For these I used some white fine flower wire, these were added last.
I took some pictures and collected the kids again as the day had disappeared.
Then it was off to rehersals for Puss in Boots. We kept it hidden until tea break and then I popped a couple of candles in the hat and gave it to the chaps. Everyone was really impressed and wouldn't cut it so I had to make them shove the knife in. All 30 of us had a good sized slice and I took pictures as my cat was devoured. A small piece was left at the end for me to bring back for the kids as it wasn't fair they had to keep seeing this cake they weren't allowed to munch.
So now all that is left is a board standing by my sink. But I still have my model.. Duracell the cat (and a t-shirt of the observer on my christmas wish list.)
Obviously it would need to be chocolate as that is always popular, but I mixed it up a little with some fresh orange and an orange caramel. I started by making a traditional victoria sponge using the weight of the eggs as my guage for all other ingredients. Once the tins were lined and I had 'tested' the cake mix I popped them in the oven while my small and sticky munchkins (children) licked the bowls and spoons clean.
So cakies in the oven took about an hour to all be baked and out in one piece but one had sunk... disaster???? oh noooo... it just ment it would have to be levelled leaving a bunch of cake crumbs for us to munch ;)
What next... ohh yes. A chocolate orange buttercream was made and an orange caramel. Orange caramel was made by melting sugar with fresh squeezed orange juice instead of water. I had no idea if this would work but once it was reduced down it ws actually jolly yummy. My daughter came in to help at this point by taking pictures of me as I fell asleep on the mixer waiting for the caramel to turn...'yes very helpful Rowan' I said. So she hung about to taste the icing as by this point I was feeling a bit sick from all the sweet things I had 'needed' to test.
I left the cakes overnight to rest in the tins and the folloing morning after school runs I set to work. Out came the jigsaw, drills, wood and copper and plastic tubes... obviously... what else do you need when making a cake. I marked out the main base and cut this out but couldnt find a drill bit big enough to drill a hole for the centre post, so I made a small hole and used a stanley blade to gradually carve out a hole big enough...
Now for the base of the cat I asked my cat Duracell to come and pose for me.. I sketched out a rough shape and repeated the cutting and making of a hole.
Ok ... so with a pole in the middle made of a bit of plumbing pipe and the frame assembled I started to layer cake with butter icing to make a tower of cake with a pole sticking out the top. This was because I wanted to remove the pole once I had the cake covered in icing to make it completely free of structure. ;)
Now taking the picture I had printed of The Observer (fabulous image by the way) I began to carve the shape I was after in my mind.... or at least as close to what was in my mind as I was competant to do.
This was then covered in buttercream and popped in the freezer to harden up ready to cover in fondant icing.
While the cake was chillin' with the fishfingers I blended some skin tone colouring with my fondant and some tylose powder to help it haren a little and hold up the cake once I took the posts out. Next I mixed some royal icing and took a template of some cogs and covered it it the royal icing in the hope I would be able to pop them out once the icing had gone hard.......Ok in this I was very wrong..When I tried to take the cogs out I ended up with lots of tiny bits of crumbly icing and not a cog in site... So back to the drawing board and instead I took 3 hours to cut individual cogs from some sugar paste mixed with fondant using a little stanley blade.
Believe it or not by now it was time to collect the kidlets and feed them and the ravinous hubby as he came in from work. So I paused my creation food, bath and bed and back to it.
Now I worked until about 11pm covering the cake in fondant and adding a few details like the nose and the fur markings. I went to bed with the distinct feeling I had created a model of a cat queen nefertiti from the egyptians.(I had some odd dreams that night)
Ok.. day 3. Today was all about making it look like The Observer. So I used some sugar paste to make a thin rim for the hat, piped an edge to it to neaten it off and removed the support which let the cake slip down to the base board. I had originally wanted it to have the floating angle like in the image but due to transport issues and the crowd I was making it for, I made it flat to the base. I held my breath to see if the structure of the carving ect would hold.. which luckily it did.
Now last night I had also used lots of the cogs to be held together with royal icing to make the butterfly wings... today as they were set I went to place them on the hat.... but they were too big... argggghhhh. So the kids ate them and I made some more which were not as fancy but time was limited now if I was to deliver the cake in time. I made a clock face, some more cogs, added a belt and buckle to the hat and some big scrummy ears out of fondant.
Once all the details were addedd I had a bite to eat as I had realised I had skipped tea and lunch the following day, and got out my airbrush.
The cake was then sprayed in a sepia brown tone with lighter and darker areas, and then as I love the old brass steampunk look I then added a copper gold layer over him to give a metalic look.
Once this was dry... ( which I used the cooker fan and a hairdryer on the cold setting to speed up the process), I then drybrushed with some edible petal powders in pearl, black, brown, silver and white.The only non edible piece on the cake was the wiskers I am ashamed to say. For these I used some white fine flower wire, these were added last.
I took some pictures and collected the kids again as the day had disappeared.
Then it was off to rehersals for Puss in Boots. We kept it hidden until tea break and then I popped a couple of candles in the hat and gave it to the chaps. Everyone was really impressed and wouldn't cut it so I had to make them shove the knife in. All 30 of us had a good sized slice and I took pictures as my cat was devoured. A small piece was left at the end for me to bring back for the kids as it wasn't fair they had to keep seeing this cake they weren't allowed to munch.
So now all that is left is a board standing by my sink. But I still have my model.. Duracell the cat (and a t-shirt of the observer on my christmas wish list.)