3D
5
by Sarah Olson @saspolson · submitted Jul 15, 2009 · 2009 contest
1 / 40
Description
When I saw Tang Yau Hoong's beautiful, and seriously clever design, "5", I knew I wanted to try to do it justice in cake form.
The Cake: The cake itself is blue velvet with cream cheese filling; covered in white chocolate ganache and vanilla fondant.
The Process: It took three days (more or less) to complete the cake. Day one for baking, two for covering, three for assembly and decoration. I used a combination of fondant and gumpaste to create all the little birdies and the leaves, and chocolate fondant from Fondarific and Satin Ice for the tree. All pieces were "glued" to the cake with royal icing. Everything on this cake is edible, except one tiny toothpick holding big red bird to the top of the cake. Well, I suppose you could eat the toothpick...I wouldn't recommend it.
During the design process, I sketched out a cake version of "5" (pic included). I wanted to create something that fit with the rough stroke nature of Hoong's design, while still saying, "hey, I'm a cake and I'm proud of it." I was most pleased with how the tree came out, rough-hewn, but still yummy looking. The leaves were also fun to create. I cut out a basic leaf shape with a fondant cutter then free-handed veins and painted them with food color.
Since the cake is 3D, I didn't want to leave the back untouched. The original design, found on Hoong's Flickr site, included hash marks (1, 2, 3, 5) along side each row of birds. On the T-shirt, that translated to a 5 (III with a slash) on the back collar. I found this subtle touch so downright cute and cheeky that I wanted to mirror it on the back of the cake (pic included).
This was a fun one to create, and I hope you enjoy the final product. Flip through the pics to see my process, and to see if you can spot my celebrity assistant, Maurice Moss from the IT Crowd, keeping a close eye over the process.
The Cake: The cake itself is blue velvet with cream cheese filling; covered in white chocolate ganache and vanilla fondant.
The Process: It took three days (more or less) to complete the cake. Day one for baking, two for covering, three for assembly and decoration. I used a combination of fondant and gumpaste to create all the little birdies and the leaves, and chocolate fondant from Fondarific and Satin Ice for the tree. All pieces were "glued" to the cake with royal icing. Everything on this cake is edible, except one tiny toothpick holding big red bird to the top of the cake. Well, I suppose you could eat the toothpick...I wouldn't recommend it.
During the design process, I sketched out a cake version of "5" (pic included). I wanted to create something that fit with the rough stroke nature of Hoong's design, while still saying, "hey, I'm a cake and I'm proud of it." I was most pleased with how the tree came out, rough-hewn, but still yummy looking. The leaves were also fun to create. I cut out a basic leaf shape with a fondant cutter then free-handed veins and painted them with food color.
Since the cake is 3D, I didn't want to leave the back untouched. The original design, found on Hoong's Flickr site, included hash marks (1, 2, 3, 5) along side each row of birds. On the T-shirt, that translated to a 5 (III with a slash) on the back collar. I found this subtle touch so downright cute and cheeky that I wanted to mirror it on the back of the cake (pic included).
This was a fun one to create, and I hope you enjoy the final product. Flip through the pics to see my process, and to see if you can spot my celebrity assistant, Maurice Moss from the IT Crowd, keeping a close eye over the process.
