3D
Loch Ness Imposter
by Christina Dunham · submitted Aug 1, 2009 · 2009 contest
1 / 13
Description
This cake actually commemorates the shirt that turned me on to Threadless in the first place; years ago, in an e-mail from my then-roomate with the subject line: "My Birthday Is Coming Up, HINT HINT!". Since that fateful day, 90% of my t-shirts sport the Threadless moniker, so I thought the best way to honor my love affair with Threadless would be by creating an edible version of the design that started it all.
To begin, I actually cut the imposter squid first (to give it a chance for the fondant to dry, making it easier to move to the cake), with an X-acto knife. I used two colors for the tenticles and then bonded them together with clear piping gel.
The cake itself is lemon cake with vanilla frosting, carved and covered with fondant. Originally, I had wanted a very spartan design, true to the T-shirt, but when I put the first layer of blue over the cake, I realized it needed something more, so I added the waves (more sheets of fondant carved with an X-acto knife)
My favorite thing about this cake is it changes depending on where you look at it. Look at it head on, and all you see is the loch ness decoy skimming across the water. Look at it from the back, and there's the joking squid hiding out under the waves.
If I could go back and do anything differently, I probably wouldn't have cut the squid out first- it turns out it dried too much overnight and some of the tentacles had to be repaired with piping gel after it was moved to the cake.
The edible Loch Ness Imposter was unveiled at a hotdog topping contest party in Brooklyn, where was some debate as to whether the Nessie decoy should have its eyes looking away or toward the squid (its head is rotated different directions in several of the photos taken), but everyone agreed that FauxNessie was delicious!
To begin, I actually cut the imposter squid first (to give it a chance for the fondant to dry, making it easier to move to the cake), with an X-acto knife. I used two colors for the tenticles and then bonded them together with clear piping gel.
The cake itself is lemon cake with vanilla frosting, carved and covered with fondant. Originally, I had wanted a very spartan design, true to the T-shirt, but when I put the first layer of blue over the cake, I realized it needed something more, so I added the waves (more sheets of fondant carved with an X-acto knife)
My favorite thing about this cake is it changes depending on where you look at it. Look at it head on, and all you see is the loch ness decoy skimming across the water. Look at it from the back, and there's the joking squid hiding out under the waves.
If I could go back and do anything differently, I probably wouldn't have cut the squid out first- it turns out it dried too much overnight and some of the tentacles had to be repaired with piping gel after it was moved to the cake.
The edible Loch Ness Imposter was unveiled at a hotdog topping contest party in Brooklyn, where was some debate as to whether the Nessie decoy should have its eyes looking away or toward the squid (its head is rotated different directions in several of the photos taken), but everyone agreed that FauxNessie was delicious!
