I Love Rainy Days

I started with baking the cake, a deep rich chocolate cake that uses hot coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor. I baked a seven inch round, a six inch round, and several small loafs with extra batter. After they had cooled, I froze them to allow for easier carving later on. I whipped up some simple buttercream, then leveled off and stacked the two rounds on top of each other. I started carving the whale's head, with the frozen cake allowing me to shave off small amounts to get the perfect shape. I popped that into the fridge while I worked on the tail. It was made of two of the small loaves sandwiched together with some buttercream. I carved the basic shape, then actually rounded off the top edge and undercut the base of the cake just enough to shape it, but not enough to make it unstable. Then I crumb coated it as well.

While those were chilling, I was busy working on the fondant pieces. I took some fondant and added tylose, a drying agent, to turn it closer to gum paste. I then rolled out for the clouds, keeping the fondant fairly thick. I decided to play around and have one sheep shaped cloud. I placed the wires in the pieces while they were drying. Once I finished with the clouds, I took the remaining fondant and colored it the bright yellow. I followed the same process for the sun. For the umbrella, I used the ring from a mason jar to give the outside diameter, then took the back of a paring knife to mark the lines where the ribs would be. I used a dome mold to shape the umbrella. I also started working on the whale's waterspout. I cut out several lengths of wire, then took a pair of round nosed pliers to create a loop on the end of each. I also slightly curved each wire.

Once each of the pieces were well chilled, I placed them on the cake board and gave them a final coat of buttercream. I placed a straw through the center of the head to hold the wires for the water so they wouldn't damage the cake. I then colored the extra buttercream blue and used it to create the base water around the whale. I textured it with the tip of my spatula then piped on the waves in white buttercream. I piped on the face with more blue buttercream, then piped the fins out of royal icing. I placed the wires for the whale's waterspout in the cake, then I tied lengths of a thinner beading wire onto the end of each wire. I then took more royal icing and piped on small beads of royal icing for the raindrops.

I let all of that dry overnight. The next day, after work, I took the cake and fondant pieces over to my mom's office to feed her starving hoard of coworkers. I had to shorten each wire on the clouds and sun to provide stability for them. Once everything was assembled, I had just enough time to snap a few photos before I started slicing it up. Her coworkers loved it. I barely managed to escape with a piece for my brother. Everything on the cake is edible except the wires in the clouds and sun, the straw in the whale, the wires in the waterspout, and the wire acting as the handle for the umbrella.