3D
Still Life With Van
by Jennifer Racine · submitted Aug 5, 2010 · 2010 contest
1 / 21
Description
Hi! Thanks for sponsoring such a cool cake contest! I learned about it on the Cake Wrecks blog, and have been working hard to find the time to do it before the deadline. Here is my cake story . . .
After hours of browsing the design gallery for the perfect design, "Still Life With Van" prevailed. I decided to put it on a three-tier cake to add some interesting depth to the original design.
I started by coloring white fondant by hand using edible food coloring. My husband helped with the kneading. Brute strength was very, very helpful!
Once I had the colors I needed, I began making the houses and buildings. This was quite a process, and took quite a long time. They are made entirely of fondant (except the supports for the water tower, which are plastic toothpicks). I used a basic cake decorating tools set and various cookie cutters to create them. I didn't have a big block of time to work on them, so I spent a little time over several days to finish them. My kids helped, mostly by eating the leftover fondant pieces and not destroying what I had already created. Thanks boys!
When I was almost finished with the houses and buildings, I baked the cakes. They are a simple yellow pound cake. I frosted them with buttercream made by a local icing maker - Dixie's Icing - which I love. It is much easier to work with than any other buttercream I have used and it tastes great. Then I covered them with the blue fondant and stacked them.
Applying the houses and buildings was the most fun part of the process. It was beyond great to finally see the cake coming together!!! I used water to attach the fondant houses and buildings to the fondant on the cake. There are some pieces of fondant used behind the scenes to hold some of the buildings straight and at the right depth. I also used fondant to support the van, which was the last thing I created. I couldn't forget the van on the "Still Life With Van" design!
Overall, the creation process took about 10 days, but I did not work on the cake for all of those days. If I had larger blocks of time to work on it, I think it would have taken 3-4 days.
I cut the cake and shared it with my sons and husband the day after it was finished. You can see by the pictures that the boys enjoyed it! It was very satisfying for me, both in taste and a job well done (or at least well, done). I hope you enjoy it!
After hours of browsing the design gallery for the perfect design, "Still Life With Van" prevailed. I decided to put it on a three-tier cake to add some interesting depth to the original design.
I started by coloring white fondant by hand using edible food coloring. My husband helped with the kneading. Brute strength was very, very helpful!
Once I had the colors I needed, I began making the houses and buildings. This was quite a process, and took quite a long time. They are made entirely of fondant (except the supports for the water tower, which are plastic toothpicks). I used a basic cake decorating tools set and various cookie cutters to create them. I didn't have a big block of time to work on them, so I spent a little time over several days to finish them. My kids helped, mostly by eating the leftover fondant pieces and not destroying what I had already created. Thanks boys!
When I was almost finished with the houses and buildings, I baked the cakes. They are a simple yellow pound cake. I frosted them with buttercream made by a local icing maker - Dixie's Icing - which I love. It is much easier to work with than any other buttercream I have used and it tastes great. Then I covered them with the blue fondant and stacked them.
Applying the houses and buildings was the most fun part of the process. It was beyond great to finally see the cake coming together!!! I used water to attach the fondant houses and buildings to the fondant on the cake. There are some pieces of fondant used behind the scenes to hold some of the buildings straight and at the right depth. I also used fondant to support the van, which was the last thing I created. I couldn't forget the van on the "Still Life With Van" design!
Overall, the creation process took about 10 days, but I did not work on the cake for all of those days. If I had larger blocks of time to work on it, I think it would have taken 3-4 days.
I cut the cake and shared it with my sons and husband the day after it was finished. You can see by the pictures that the boys enjoyed it! It was very satisfying for me, both in taste and a job well done (or at least well, done). I hope you enjoy it!
