2D
Clean Monster
by Melinda Leung @leung3356 · submitted Aug 5, 2010 · 2010 contest
1 / 57
Description
Our cake story... while surfing on facebook (where many of us spend countless hours on but really shouldn't), I ran across this contest someone had posted and naturally, I clicked and was instantly intrigued (watching too much food network cake challenges might have had something to do with that...). Since my friend and I always joked about being on one of those challenges, I thought this would be a wonderful way to practice minus the time limits and height requirements, superb!
If this was an actual food network cake challenge, we would've greatly failed but since its not, the cake turned out great after some major decision changes.
"Clean Monster" Cake Challenge Threadcake style:
Originally, this was to be a 3D cake. The plan was to avoid all inedible parts: dowels, toothpicks, etc... having that in mind we decide we're going to build the buildings by stacking small cake squares together like legos then wrap it in fondant. The green monster will be formed from fondant and there was to be a sheet cake we would use as a base. Sounds like the perfect plan...until it was put into action. Apparently there were quite a bit of details we missed (more on that later).
Day 0.5 (day prior to Day 1): gathering of materials and determining how much cake we would need. Basically shopping.
Day 1: baking of cakes and more cakes. Since we were going to build the buildings using small squares, we baked these in a thin sheet pan so it can be lighter when we stacked. The base cake we just baked on a regular 9x11 pan. Then we worked on the frosting. We decided on a chocolate cake, so what would be more perfect than chocolate butter cream frosting? Taste was a pretty important factor since we'd have to eat it. So we baked and frosted. 12am rolls around and our cakes are ready to be stacked, hurray! Soon after the first building was stacked (there were 13 buildings altogether! Nightmare!), we realized our buildings are NOT going to stand but being naive hopefuls, we thought maybe this was because the cake is too soft right now, it'll probably stand if we put the cake in the freezer and that was what we did.
Day 2: Coloring fondant...somewhat of a horrid mess...powdered everything everywhere and mountains of sticky fondant but we managed to get the perfect colors. Pulled frozen cake buildings out of freezer and running slightly (meaning A LOT) behind schedule. We still had to roll fondant to cover the buildings...ALL 13, frost the buildings so fondant would stick (we found out if we didn't frost, the building would actually look like an alligator's back...), build the green monster, figure out how to attach all of those parts to the base cake without a dowel and much more. Now since it was Monday and we both had to move on with life, we reached a point where much staring occurred...we had come to far to just give up, and was definitely not an option. Then I realized, we didn't have to make a 3D cake, there was a 2D portion of the contest too! Instant relief and we both went to work. We had all the right fondant colors already and it was so much more pleasant making 2D versions of the buildings and the monster. Phew... a few more hours later: WE FINALLY FINISHED!
Snap some final pictures and then it was time to rip it apart! It was delicious and satisfying at the same time. As for the remainder of the cake, I decided what better way to get rid of it than to share, so I brought it to work and it was completely devoured. As for those buildings we spent countless hours stacking....they eventually fulfilled their destinies too and was later devoured as well. Cake was yum, project completed, we were a couple of proud people.
If this was an actual food network cake challenge, we would've greatly failed but since its not, the cake turned out great after some major decision changes.
"Clean Monster" Cake Challenge Threadcake style:
Originally, this was to be a 3D cake. The plan was to avoid all inedible parts: dowels, toothpicks, etc... having that in mind we decide we're going to build the buildings by stacking small cake squares together like legos then wrap it in fondant. The green monster will be formed from fondant and there was to be a sheet cake we would use as a base. Sounds like the perfect plan...until it was put into action. Apparently there were quite a bit of details we missed (more on that later).
Day 0.5 (day prior to Day 1): gathering of materials and determining how much cake we would need. Basically shopping.
Day 1: baking of cakes and more cakes. Since we were going to build the buildings using small squares, we baked these in a thin sheet pan so it can be lighter when we stacked. The base cake we just baked on a regular 9x11 pan. Then we worked on the frosting. We decided on a chocolate cake, so what would be more perfect than chocolate butter cream frosting? Taste was a pretty important factor since we'd have to eat it. So we baked and frosted. 12am rolls around and our cakes are ready to be stacked, hurray! Soon after the first building was stacked (there were 13 buildings altogether! Nightmare!), we realized our buildings are NOT going to stand but being naive hopefuls, we thought maybe this was because the cake is too soft right now, it'll probably stand if we put the cake in the freezer and that was what we did.
Day 2: Coloring fondant...somewhat of a horrid mess...powdered everything everywhere and mountains of sticky fondant but we managed to get the perfect colors. Pulled frozen cake buildings out of freezer and running slightly (meaning A LOT) behind schedule. We still had to roll fondant to cover the buildings...ALL 13, frost the buildings so fondant would stick (we found out if we didn't frost, the building would actually look like an alligator's back...), build the green monster, figure out how to attach all of those parts to the base cake without a dowel and much more. Now since it was Monday and we both had to move on with life, we reached a point where much staring occurred...we had come to far to just give up, and was definitely not an option. Then I realized, we didn't have to make a 3D cake, there was a 2D portion of the contest too! Instant relief and we both went to work. We had all the right fondant colors already and it was so much more pleasant making 2D versions of the buildings and the monster. Phew... a few more hours later: WE FINALLY FINISHED!
Snap some final pictures and then it was time to rip it apart! It was delicious and satisfying at the same time. As for the remainder of the cake, I decided what better way to get rid of it than to share, so I brought it to work and it was completely devoured. As for those buildings we spent countless hours stacking....they eventually fulfilled their destinies too and was later devoured as well. Cake was yum, project completed, we were a couple of proud people.
