I Wish I Were

Our family owns far too many Threadless shirts; and I own a custom cake studio. So - when I saw an opportunity to put those two things together... well, how could I not? My son's favorite shirt is 'I wish I were'. I could just picture it as a little devil playing on an angel food cake. I'm always looking for new recipes and thought this contest might be a good time to try out a new one. I started with the Lady Baltimore Cake from Amy Sedaris' book, "I Like You." I filled it with a vanilla pastry cream (always a crowd pleaser) and frosted it with a swiss meringue buttercream. I smoothed the cake and turned it into the perfect little 'bakery' cake. Then I got to work on the fun part - sculpting the little devil. It took me a few tries to get his torso the right size, but once I had that, the rest was just playing. Leino's linework is so crisp and clear that I found it fun to mold the different muscle shapes from the artwork. My kids really liked the way the face turned out, and my husband was particularly offended by the chest hair. :-) Usually I am so careful not to mess up a cake's finish - so, for the first time I dug into the frosting on purpose, creating the 'snow angel.' Once the devil was in place, we all oohed and ahhed. They say, "the devil is in the details," but really - isn't it more fun when he's in your cake?