3D
Fail
by Meg Ward · submitted Aug 12, 2010 · 2010 contest
1 / 62
Description
This my second entry for ThreadCakes. Last year, my able assistant and I attempted the pipe cake and it was a horrendous failure that we did not submit. This year, we decided to do Fail. This is actually our second cake -- we did an initial test run in June to try and work out any kinks. The first one collapsed onto itself, but as you can see, we've resolved that issue.
Unfortunately, we seem to have a knack for picking the hottest days of the year to bake and decorate cakes on. You'd think we'd learn by now, but with the end of the contest coming it was now or never.
It took us about 10 hours across two days. Friday night we baked all of the cakes (except one, as we determined we needed one more layer), and did the initial rice krispie sculpting, chocolate dipping, and moon making. On day two, we trimmed, filled, stacked, fondanted, added details, and made the chocolate trees.
Being firm believers in Go Big Or Go Home, we used mini-leds for lighting up the moon.
About the cake -- the recipe itself is an Emeril recipe for sour cream fudge cake. It's very dense and moist, and makes a good firm cake. The frosting is just storebought - vanilla for the outside, and chocolate for the inside. The moon is candy melts, poured into a foil shell and then trimmed up by hand. The cows were molded out of rice krispies and dipped into white chocolate, they were then decorated with more candy melts in two shades of brown, and pink. The eyes, horns, and tails are molded from tootsie rolls. The trees were free-handed from melted chocolate. The fondant is the wilton box, because I was not going to make fondant in 94 degree heat :) The painting was done with a sponge brush, using a mix of vodka and gel color.
The important question, of course, is did it taste good? To which we enthusiastically respond YES! It was sweet and tangy and perfect. And all the sweeter because there was a space of about an hour and a half between finishing the cake and serving it up, and it was still standing and in one piece! :D
The team was Meg (myself) - cake ninja extraordinaire and main worker bee, my girlfriend Lindsay, able sous chef, my husband Chris, the documentarian, and our toddler AK, chief cake nibbler.
It's not a professional cake, but I think the sense of whimsy and the cartoonishness of the cows is very much in keeping with the sensibility of the shirt. Plus, I'm already looking forward to next year.
Unfortunately, we seem to have a knack for picking the hottest days of the year to bake and decorate cakes on. You'd think we'd learn by now, but with the end of the contest coming it was now or never.
It took us about 10 hours across two days. Friday night we baked all of the cakes (except one, as we determined we needed one more layer), and did the initial rice krispie sculpting, chocolate dipping, and moon making. On day two, we trimmed, filled, stacked, fondanted, added details, and made the chocolate trees.
Being firm believers in Go Big Or Go Home, we used mini-leds for lighting up the moon.
About the cake -- the recipe itself is an Emeril recipe for sour cream fudge cake. It's very dense and moist, and makes a good firm cake. The frosting is just storebought - vanilla for the outside, and chocolate for the inside. The moon is candy melts, poured into a foil shell and then trimmed up by hand. The cows were molded out of rice krispies and dipped into white chocolate, they were then decorated with more candy melts in two shades of brown, and pink. The eyes, horns, and tails are molded from tootsie rolls. The trees were free-handed from melted chocolate. The fondant is the wilton box, because I was not going to make fondant in 94 degree heat :) The painting was done with a sponge brush, using a mix of vodka and gel color.
The important question, of course, is did it taste good? To which we enthusiastically respond YES! It was sweet and tangy and perfect. And all the sweeter because there was a space of about an hour and a half between finishing the cake and serving it up, and it was still standing and in one piece! :D
The team was Meg (myself) - cake ninja extraordinaire and main worker bee, my girlfriend Lindsay, able sous chef, my husband Chris, the documentarian, and our toddler AK, chief cake nibbler.
It's not a professional cake, but I think the sense of whimsy and the cartoonishness of the cows is very much in keeping with the sensibility of the shirt. Plus, I'm already looking forward to next year.